
f 











■V 

. . . 










-- x 







AN ESSAY 



f DEMONOLOGY, GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS, 



POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 

ALSO, 

AN ACCOUNT 
OF THE 

WITCHCRAFT DELUSION AT SALEM, 
IX 1692. 



w r 

By JAME3 THACHER, M. D., A. A. S. 



'With spells and charms I hreak the viper's jaw, 
Cleave solid rocks, oaks from their fissures draw. 
Whole woods remove, the airy mountains shake, 
Earth forced to groan, and ghosts from graves awake.' 
Ovi ji ■» Met amor. 



There are mysteries even in nature, which we cannot 
investigate, paradoxes which we can never resolve. 



BOSTON: 
CARTER AND SENDEE. 

M DCCC XXXI. 









Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 
1831, by Carter & Hendee, in the Clerk's Office of 
the District Court of Massachusetts. 



BOSTON CLASSIC PRESS. 
I.R.BUTTS. 






ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following pages were in substance com- 
posed to be read before the Plymouth Lyceum, 
in 1829. When it was understood that Rev. 
Charles W. Upham was about to favor the 
public with a work on the same subject, it was 
determined that this little performance should be 
suppressed. The Rev. Author observed in a let- 
ter, that although we may traverse the same field, 
it is highly probable that we pursue different tracks. 
The subject is so various, ample and abundant in 
instruction, that good rather than evil would re- 
sult from the application of more than one mind 
to its discussion.' Since therefore, in the deeply 
interesting work referred to, the learned author 



IV 



has not particularly discussed the subjects of 
Ghosts, Apparitions, Mental Illusions, &c, there 
may be no impropriety in submitting the following 
imperfect production to the public, with the hope 
that it will not be considered as altogether su- 
perfluous. 

J. T. 
Plymouth, Nov. 1831. 



CONTENTS. 



Tago. 

Ghosts and Apparitions, 1 

Power of Imagination, 21 

Illusions, 26 

Imagination and Fear, 47 

Superstition, 63 

Witchcraft and Sorcery, 74 

Salem Witchcraft, 113 

Omens and Auguries, 204 

Medical Quackery, 225 






ESSAY. 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 



Such is the constitution of the human mind, 
that it never attains to perfection ; it is con- 
stantly susceptible of erroneous impressions 
and perverse propensities. The faculties of 
the soul are bound in thraldom by superstition, 
and the intellect, under its influence, is 
scarcely capable of reflecting on its divine 
origin, its nobleness and dignity. The mind 
that is imbued with a superstitious tempera- 
ment, is liable to incessant torment, and is 
prepared to inflict the most atrocious evils on 
mankind ; even murder, suicide, and merciless 
persecution, have proceeded from, and been 
sanctioned by a superstitious spirit. It is this, 
in its most appalling aspect, which impels the 
heathen to a life of mutilation and perpetual 
pain and torment of body, which degrades the 
1 



2 GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS 

understanding below that of a brute. The* 
superstitions practised by the devotees to the 
Roman Catholic Church, if less horrible, are 
equally preposterous and pernicious. The 
popular belief in supernatural visitations in 
the form of apparitions and spectres, is foster- 
ed and encouraged by the baneful influence of 
superstition and prejudice. So universal has 
been the prevalence of the belief that those 
conversant with history can resort to the era 
when every village had its ghost or witch, as, 
in more ancient times, every family had its 
household gods. Superstition, is a word of 
very extensive signification, but for the purpose 
of this work, the word applies to those who 
believe in witchcraft, magic, and apparitions, 
or that the divine will is decided by omens or 
auguries ; that the fortune of individuals can 
be affected by things indifferent,- by things 
deemed lucky or unlucky, or that disease can 
be cured by words, charms, and incantations. 
It means, in short, the belief of what is false 
and contrary to reason. Superstition arises 
from, and is sustained by ignorance and cred- 
ulity in the understanding. The subject of 
supernatural agency and the reality of witch- 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. t* 

craft, has been the occasion of unbounded 
speculation, and of much philosophical dis- 
quisition, in almost all nations and ages. 
While some of the wisest of men have assent- 
ed to their actual existence and visible appear- 
ance, others equally eminent have maintained 
the opinion that the supposed apparitions are 
to be accounted for on the principle of feverish 
dreams and disturbed imaginations. That 
our Creator has power to employ celestial 
spirits as instruments and messengers, and to 
create supernatural visions on the human 
mind, it would be impious to deny. But we 
can conceive of no necessity, at the present 
day, for the employment of disembodied spirits 
in our world ; we can hold no intercourse with 
them, nor realize the slightest advantage by 
their agency. To believe in apparitions is to 
believe that God suspends the law of nature 
for the most trivial purposes, and that he would 
communicate the power of doing mischief, and 
of controling his laws to beings, merely to 
gratify their own passions, which is inconsist- 
ent with the goodness of God. We are suffi- 
ciently aware that the sacred spirits of our 
fathers have ascended to regions prepared for 



4 GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS, 

for their reception, and there may they remain 
undisturbed till the mighty secrets now con- 
cealed shall be revealed for our good. The 
soul or spirit of man is immaterial, of course 
intangible and invisible. If it is not recog- 
nisable by our senses, how can the dead ap- 
pear to the living ? That disembodied spirits 
should communicate with surviving objects on 
earth, that the ghosts of the murdered should 
appear to disclose the murderer, or that the 
spirit of the wise and good should return to 
proffer instructions to the vile and ignorant, 
must be deemed unphilosophical. 

It will now be attempted to demonstrate, 
that the generality of the supposed apparitions, 
in modern times, will admit of explanation 
from causes purely natural. For this purpose, 
it will be requisite first, to describe the system 
of nerves, and their functions, which constitute 
a part of our complicated frames. Nerves are 
to be considered as a tissue of strings or cords, 
which have their origin in the brain and spinal 
marrow, and are distributed in branches to all 
parts of the body. They are the immediate 
organs of sensation and of muscular action. 
Upon the integrity of the nerves, all the senses, 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. O 

Both external and internal, entirely depend. 
The nerves are the medium of illusions; their 
influence pervades the whole body, and their 
various impressions are transmitted to the 
brain. When the entire brain is affected, de- 
lirium is the consequence ; if the optic nerve 
only, visions disturb the imagination ; if the 
acoustic nerves receive the impression, unreal 
sounds or voices are heard. If the optic 
nerves are cut or rendered paralytic, the sense 
of vision is irrecoverably destroyed. The 
nervous system is liable to be diseased and de- 
ranged from various causes, from which, it is 
obvious, derangement of both body and mind 
must ensue. The following is extracted from 
a lecture on Moral Philosophy, by the learned 
and Reverend Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D., 
late President of the College of New Jersey. 

' The nerves are easily excited into move- 
ment by an infinite variety of external im- 
pulses, or internal agitations. By whatever 
impulse any motion, vibration, or affection, in 
the nervous system is produced, a correspon- 
dent sensation, or train of sensations, or ideas 
in the mind, will naturally follow. When the 
body is in regular health, and the operations 
1* 



6 GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 

of the mind are in a natural and healthful 
train, the action of the nervous system, being 
affected only by the regular and successive im- 
pressions made upon it by the objects of na- 
ture, as they successively occur, will present 
to the mind just and true images of the scenes 
that surround it. But by various species of 
infirmity and disorder in the body, the nerves, 
sometimes in their entire system, and some- 
times only in those divisions of them which 
are attached to particular organs of sense, may 
be subjected to very irregular motions or vi- 
brations. Hence unreal images may be raised 
in the mind. The state of the nervous affec- 
tions may be vitiated by intemperate indul- 
gence, or by infirmity resulting from sedentary 
and melancholy habits. Superstitions, fancies, 
or enthusiastic emotions, do often greatly dis- 
turb the regular action of the nervous system, 
Such elastic and vibratory strings may be sub- 
ject to an infinite variety of irregular move- 
ments, sometimes in consequence of a dis- 
ordered state of health, and sometimes arising 
from peculiarity of constitutional structure, 
which may present false and often fantastic 
images to the mind. No eause, perhaps, 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS 7 

produces a more anomalous oscitancy, or vi- 
bration of the nervous system, or of some 
particular portions of it, than habits of intem- 
perate indulgence. And I have not unfre- 
quently become acquainted with men who had 
been addicted to such excesses, who were 
troubled with apprehensions of supernatural 
apparitions. A peculiar imbecility of consti- 
tution, however, created by study, retirement, 
or other causes, may be productive of similar 
effects, and sometimes these nervous anomalies 
are formed in men who are otherwise of active 
and athletic constitutions. But where they 
possess enlightened minds and vigorous un- 
derstandings, such visionary tendencies may 
be counteracted by their intellectual energies. 
Yet have we sometimes known the strongest 
understandings overcome by the vivacity of 
nervous impression, which frequently is scarcely 
inferior to the most lively ideas of sense. This 
may, especially, be the case in two opposite 
conditions; either when the body has fallen 
into a gloomy temperament, and the mind is 
weakened by fears, in which case it is op- 
pressed by distressing apprehensions; or, on 
the other hand, when the nerves, the primary 



8 GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 

organs, of sensation, are strained into an un- 
natural tension, and the whole system is ex- 
alted by an enthusiastic fervor to the pitch of 
delirious intoxication. When a man is ex- 
alted to such a degree of nervous excitement 
and mental feeling, his visions are commonly 
pleasing, often rapturous, and sometimes fan- 
tastic ; but generally rise above the control or 
correction of the judgment. Lord Lyttleton, 
in the vision which he believed he saw of his 
deceased mother's form, shortly before his own 
death, may be an example of the former ; and 
the Baron Von Swedenborg, in his supposed 
visions, sometimes of angels and sometimes of 
reptiles, may be an instance of the latter. 
Persons, whose fancies have been much dis- 
turbed in early life, by the tales of nurses, and 
other follies of an injudicious education, creat- 
ing a timid and superstitious mind, are more 
especially liable to have their fears alarmed 
and their imagination excited by every object 
in the dark. Whence sounds will be aug- 
mented to the ear, and images rendered more 
glaring to the eyes.' 

In a note, the learned author presents the 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 9 

following examples, tending to illustrate the 
principles just advanced. 

'I knew, some years ago, a worthy lady 
who, anxiously watching by the cradle of a 
sick infant, and momently expecting its death, 
felt, as she believed, just before it expired, a 
violent stroke across the back of both her 
arms. From a tincture of superstitious appre- 
hension infused in her early education, and 
unacquainted with any natural cause of such 
a phenomenon, she construed it into a preter- 
natural signal of the death of her child. It 
was, probably, a sudden and convulsive con- 
traction of the muscles in that part of the sys- 
tem, occasioned by the solicitude of her mind 
and the fatigue of watching, which, aided by 
imagination in a very interesting moment, pro- 
duced a shock that had to her the feeling of a 
severe concussion. That a convulsive con- 
traction should take place in those particular 
muscles need not appear strange to those who 
know how irregular and uncertain is the whole 
train of nervous action, especially under the 
operation of some disorders of the body ; and 
frequently, under the influence of strong af- 
fections and emotions of the mind.' ' A 



10 GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 

young lady, who was peculiarly susceptible of 
the impressions of fear in the dark, or at the 
sight of any of the accompaniments of death, 
attended the funeral of one of her intimate 
companions, who had died of the small pox. 
On the following night she lodged in company 
with a female friend of great firmness of mind. 
Waking in the night, some time after the moon 
had risen, and faintly enlightened her cham- 
ber, the first object that struck her view was a 
white robe hanging on the tall back of a chair, 
and a cap placed on the top. Her disturbed 
imagination instantly took the alarm, and in 
her agitation and terror rousing her compan- 
ion, she exclaimed violently that her deceased 
friend was standing before her. The lady, 
with great presence of mind, brought the arti- 
cles of clothing which had caused the alarm, 
and thus composed her fears. After she had 
become tranquil and was able distinctly to re- 
call her sensations, she declared that the per- 
fect image of the deceased, just as she was 
dressed for her coffin seemed to be before her 
sight. She contemplated it as long as her fears 
would permit her, before she exclaimed. She 
was sure that she recognised every feature of 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS, 11 

her friend, and even the pits of the small pox,, 
of which she died, in her face. And she afc 
firmed that before any tribunal she would have 
been willing to make oath to this fact.' ' I 
have introduced this anecdote/ says Dr Smith, 
1 merely to illustrate the power of the imagina- 
tion by its reaction on the nervous system, to 
complete the pictures that any sudden impul 
ses of the senses, occasioned by surprise or by 
superstitious or enthusiastic feeling, have be- 
gun to form. It is not a solitary anecdote of 
the kind. But I have selected it, because I 
am more perfectly possessed of the circum- 
stances, than of many others that are circulat- 
ed through certain classes of society. Nor 
are these classes always to be found among the 
most ignorant and credulous.' Lord Lyttleton 
was a man of splendid abilities, but degraded 
himself by a continued course of profligacy and 
the basest dissipation. He was arrested in his 
career by a sudden and remarkable death, at 
the age of thirty five in the year 1779. The 
various narrations that have been published 
relative to this singular event concur in most 
of the following particulars. Three days pre- 
vious 'to his death T being in perfect healthy he 



12 GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 

was warned in a dream or vision of the event, 
which, accordingly, took place without any 
previous illness. According to his own ac- 
count, he awoke from sleep, and saw the im- 
age of his deceased mother, who opened the 
curtains of his bed and denounced to him, 
that in three days he should die. On the sen- 
tence being denounced, he started up in great 
terror, incoherently saying, i what ! shall I not 
live three days?' The reply was, no, you will 
not live more than three days, and the appari- 
tion instantly vanished. This alarming vision 
his lordship related, at breakfast the next 
morning, to several women who were his com- 
panions. They fell a crying ; but he, although 
secretly agitated, pretended to disregard the 
affair, laughed at their credulous folly, and 
professed to have no sort of belief, or appre- 
hension about it. On the third day of the pre- 
diction, he invited Admiral Woolsey and 
another friend to dine with him, at his country 
seat. At dinner, his lordship, appeared more 
than usually loquacious and desultory in his 
conversation, reciting the probable remarks 
that would of course be made whenever the 
news of. his death should be announced. In 



GH03TS AND APPARITIONS, 13 

the evening, perceiving his female companions 
in a gloomy mood, he took one of them and 
danced a minuet with her, then taking out his 
watch, said, ' Look you here, it is now nine 
o'clock, according to the vision I have but three 
hours to live, but don't you mind this, madam ; 
never fear, we'll jocky the ghost, I warrant 
you.' At eleven o'clock he retired to bed ear- 
lier than usual with him, but his pretence was, 
that he had planned for the party to breakfast 
early, and spend the day in riding into the 
country. Admiral Woolsey and his friend re- 
solved to sit in the parlor till the predicted 
hour was past, and the clock was privately put 
a little forward, and as soon as it struck twelve, 
his lordship said, ' you see I have cheated the 
ghost ;' but soon after a voice was heard from 
the staircase, uttering these words. ' He 's 
dead ? Oh, my lord is dead !' Instantly run- 
ning up stairs, they found him in bed, fallen 
back, and struggling. Admiral Woolsey took 
his hand, which was grasped with such vio- 
lence that it was painful to endure, but he 
spake no more. His eyes were turned up and 
fixed. They opened the jugular vein, but no 
blood issued, and he was entirely dead at mid- 



14 GHOSTS ANt) APPARITIONS. 

night of the third day. Admiral Woolsey 
gives the following remarkable particulars in 
addition. At the distance of thirty miles from 
the place where this melancholy scene hap- 
pened there lived a gentlemen, one of the inti- 
mate companions of Lord Lyttleton, M. P. An- 
drews, Esq. ; and they had agreed that which- 
ever of them should die first, the survivor 
should receive one thousand pounds from the 
estate of the deceased. On this very night he 
awoke about one o'clock and rung his bell 
with great violence. His servant ran to him 
with all speed, and inquired, ' what is the mat- 
ter ? ' The gentleman sitting up in bed, with a 
countenance full of horror, cried out, ' Oh Johnj! 
Lord Lyttleton is dead V ' Kow can that be ? ' 
he replied, c we have heard nothing, but that 
he is alive and well.' The master exclaimed 
with the greatest perturbation, i no, no, I 
awoke just now on hearing the curtains un- 
drawn, and at the foot of the bed stood Lord 
Lyttleton, as plain as ever I saw him in my 
life. He looked ghastly, and said, "■ all is over 
with me, Andrews. You have won the thou- 
sand pounds," and vanished.' After attending 
to the particulars above detailed, it would 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 15 

seem to require a philosophical firmness to re- 
sist the impression in favor of supernatural 
visitations ; but this latter instance will, I be- 
lieve, bear a different explanation. The gen- 
tleman was apprised of Lyttleton's vision and 
predicted death, which, with the thousand 
pounds depending, must have excited in his 
mind an exquisite degree of anxiety, and rous- 
ed a guilty conscience. He doubtless count- 
ed every hour, and although he fell asleep, 
could not be calm, and probably had a disturb- 
ed dream. Awaking suddenly, it is quite nat- 
ural that he should have the impression, that 
the prediction was fulfilled. Dr. Smith, who 
is quoted above, comments as follows on the 
death of Lord Lyttleton. His lordship was a 
man who had worn down to a very feeble state, 
a lively and elastic constitution, and impaired 
a brilliant wit, by voluptuous, and intemperate 
excesses. A few days before his death, he 
imagined that he saw before him the perfect 
resemblance of his deceased mother, who de- 
nounced to him that on such a day, and at a 
prescribed hour, he should die. Under a con- 
strained vivacity, his mind, during the inter* 
val, was evidently much agitated. And on 



16 GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 

the predicted day, and at the prescribed time, 
he actually expired. 

This fact has been regarded by many per- 
sons, and those by no means of inferior under- 
standings, as a decisive proof of the reality of 
apparitions from the spiritual world ; and by 
others has been attempted to be resolved on a 
variety of different grounds. The principles 
already suggested, may, perhaps, serve to ex- 
plain it in conformity with the known laws df 
human nature, if the theory of nervous vibra- 
tion be admitted to be true, without resorting 
to the solution of supernatural agents. The 
irregular and convulsive motions in the ner- 
vous system which frequently arise from long 
continued habits of intemperate indulgence, 
might be especially expected in a constitution 
so irritable and debilitated, as that of Lord 
Lyttleton. If, either sleeping or waking, or, 
in that indefinite interval between sleeping and 
waking, their disordered movements could pre- 
sent to the fancy or excite in the visual nerves, 
the distinct image of a living person apparent- 
ly resuscitated from the dead, which has been 
shown to be a possible case, the debilitated 
frame of his lordship, agitated as it must have 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 17 

often been, by the conscious apprehension of 
his approaching end, may naturally be suppos- 
ed to have predisposed them to such a vision. 
Conscience, notwithstanding his assumed gaye- 
ty, somewhat perturbed by the fears of death, 
and with a recollection of a pious mother, 
whose anxious admonitions had often endeav- 
ored in vain to recall him from his vices, and 
to fix his thoughts on his future existence, 
might naturally retrace her features in this for- 
midable vision. It is not improbable, that the 
whole scene may have been a kind of waking 
dream, or if it was wholly transacted in sleep, 
it might have been with such a forcible and 
vivid vibration, or impulse of the nerves con- 
cerned in the formation of such an image, as 
would give it the distinctness and vivacity of 
waking sensation. In the tumult of his spirits, 
and the fear-excited vibrations of his whole 
system, it is not strange, that the image of that 
disappointed and reproaching parent should be 
presented to him, with a solemn and forebod- 
ing aspect. And it would be adding only one 
trait of terror to the scene, already so well pre- 
pared to admit it, and one that is perfectly 
conformable to our experience of the desulto- 
2* 



18 GHOSTS AND APPARITIGNSc 

ry images of dreaming, as well as what we 
have learned of similar visionary impressions 
— that a particular period should be denouno 
ed to him for his death, the symptoms and pre- 
sages of which, in all probability, he frequent- 
ly felt in the tremors and palpitation of a 
breaking constitution. The principal difficul- 
ty in the minds of those who have only care- 
lessly attended to this history, is to account for 
the exact correspondence of the event of his 
death to the time fixed by the prediction, if it 
had no other foundation than nervous impres- 
sion. The imagined prediction itself was suf- 
ficient, in a debilitated and exhausted consti- 
tution, like that of Lord Lyttleton, to produce 
its own accomplishment. Seizing upon his 
fears, in spite of his reason and philosophy, for 
a life of dissipation and sensual excess gener- 
ally very much weakens the powers both of 
the mind and of the body, it would naturally 
throw his whole system into great commotion. 
These perturbed and tumultuous agitations 
would increase as the destined moment ap- 
proached, till the strength of nature failing, 
may well be supposed to break at the point of 
extreme convulsion ; that is, at the expected 
moment of death. 



GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. 19 

To a case analogous, in many respects, to 
that of his lordship, there are many witnesses 
still living in the city of Philadelphia. The 
contrast in the issue of the latter, serves to 
confirm the solution which has just been given 
of the former. Mr Edwards, a clergyman of 
the Baptist persuasion in that city, of a ten- 
dency somewhat addicted to melancholy in his 
habit, but, otherwise of a vigorous constitution, 
had, like Lord Lyttleton, a visual impression, 
so clear and distinctly defined, that he mistook 
it for a supernatural messenger from the spir- 
itual world to announce to him that at the end 
of a certain period, he should die. He was 
so persuaded of the reality of the vision, and 
the verity of the prediction, that he took leave 
of his particular friends, and of his congrega- 
tion, before the appointed day. On the eve- 
ning of this day, I saw his, house filled with 
spectators and inquirers, awaiting with solici- 
tude the catastrophe of this extraordinary af- 
fair. The tumult of his whole system, his 
difficult respiration, his quick and tremulous 
pulse, and its frequent intermissions, led many 
to announce, at various times during that eve- 
ning, to the surrounding spectators, that he 



20 GHOST* AND APPARITIONS. 

was just expiring. And without doubt, if his 
frame had been as weak and delicate as his 
nervous system, he could not have survived the 
agitations, and, I may say, almost convulsions, 
into which he was thrown. And here would 
have been another prediction, and another su- 
pernatural appearance, as extraordinary as 
those of Lord Lyttleton. But his constitution 
triumphed, and he remained a monument to 
prove the force of nervous illusion, which, in 
this case, as doubtless it has proved in many 
others, appears to have given birth to an image 
as clear and definite as could have been pro- 
duced by the actual presence of such an ob- 
ject as was supposed to have created it. I 
would hardly have ventured to relate such an 
anecdote, if there were not ample testimony 
to its verity still existing. The good man was 
so ashamed of his delusion, and it so much 
lessened his credit with his spiritual flock, that 
he was obliged to leave the city, and the 
church where he had formerly been highly 
esteemed, and retire to a remote position in 
the country. Many anecdotes to confirm the 
reality of nervous sensation, if I may apply 
that phrase to designate those sensible pcrcep- 



POWER OF IMAGINATION. 21 

tions which are sometimes caused in the mind, 
without the presence or aid of external ob- 
jects, must have occurred to those who have 
had extensive opportunities of practically ob- 
serving human nature. With several persons 
I have been acquainted, and those by no means 
of inferior understanding, who have been 
firmly persuaded of the existence of the spec- 
tres indicated by such nervous affections, and 
have, on such occasions, held conversations 
with them, real on their part, imaginary on the 
part of the supposed spectre. Such, perhaps, 
in general, are the disciples of the Baron Von 
Swedenborg. But illusions of this nature are 
not confined to this class of men alone. 



POWER OF IMAGINATION. 

Dr Van Cleve, of Princeton, was lately 
applied to as a physician on behalf of a man 
who had reduced himself by intemperance, to 
a state of very distressing nervous irregularity. 
He was continually disturbed by visions, some- 
times of the most fantastic kind. He often 
heard strange voices, and would ask and 



22 POWER OF IMAGINATION. 

answer questions, as if engaged in conversation 
with some of his visionary personages. His 
disorder, the doctor said., was evidently not 
of that species which is usually denominated 
mania, but appeared to be wholly the effect of 
a habit of nervous irregularity, delirium tre- 
mens, induced by previous intemperance. But 
the Baron Von Swedenborg, in his most vis- 
ionary moments, was never surrounded by 
more extraordinary assemblages of strange 
sights. A very striking example of the power 
of nervous impression, occurred a k\v years 
ago in the Rev. James Wilson, formerly assist- 
ant minister with Dr Rodgers, in the first 
Presbyterian Church in New York. He was 
a native of Scotland, and was a man highly 
.esteemed for his good sense, and the sound- 
ness of his judgment ; although not distin- 
guished for a warm and popular eloquence. 
Being obliged for a time to relinquish the ex- 
ercise of his ministry from a hemorrhage in 
his breast, he employed himself for several 
years in different occupations in Scotland and 
America, but chiefly in presiding over an 
Academy in Alexandria, in the State of Vir- 
ginia. The expectoration of blood having 



POWER OF IMAGINATION', S3 

Ceased for a considerable time, his conscience 
began to reproach him for indolence and self- 
indulgence, in not renewing his ministerial 
functions. In this uneasy state of mind, a 
Vision, as he thought, of a man of very digni- 
fied aspect, stood at the foot of his bed in the 
morning, after he was perfectly awake, and 
surveying him steadily for some moments, 
commanded him to resume his duties in the 
pulpit : but added, that as considerable error 
had crept into the church, he should undertake 
to reform it according to the model of the primi- 
tive age, Mr Wilson, conscious of his want 
of eloquent talents, and reforming zeal, rea- 
soned with the supposed apparition, alleging 
his utter incompetency to the task imposed 
upon him. The dialogue ended in a repeti- 
tion of the command, and assurance of ability 
and success. The good man, wholly unable 
to explain this clear and palpable vision, on 
any principles of nature or philosophy with 
which he was acquainted, was deeply distress-' 
ed, yet perfectly sensible of his insufficiency 
for such an undertaking, he neglected attempt- 
ing to fulfil it. After an interval of two or 
three years, the vision was repeated, with 



24 POWER OF IMAGINATION. 

nearly the same circumstances, except that 
the aspect of the person who appeared to pre- 
sent himself, was more severe, and expressive 
of displeasure at his past delinquency. Mr 
Wilson repeated his former reasonings on his 
want of health, and want of talents, with other 
topics. But the answer was still the same ; a 
repetition of the injunction, and assurance of 
the necessary ability, and ultimate success. 
His distress was raised to the highest degree 
in the conflict of his mind between what he 
thought a sensible demonstration of a super- 
natural requisition, and an invincible con- 
sciousness of his own incompetency, and his 
fear of doing an injury to true religion by his 
failure. After consulting several of his friends 
upon the subject, he at length addressed a 
letter to the author, stating all the circumstan- 
ces which have just been detailed. He was 
answered with the general reasonings contained 
in this lecture, to convince him that his vision 
was merely a consequence of nervous affection, 
resulting from bodily disorder. Three letters 
passed between Mr Wilson and the author, 
reasoned on the part of Mr Wilson with great 
calmness and good sense, admitting all the 



POWER OF IMAGINATION. 25 

objections to such an apostolic undertaking as 
that to which he was urged, both from scrip- 
ture and from his own peculiar deficiency of 
power and talents, but pleading the impulse of 
a sensation as clear and strong, and, to his 
mind, as real as he had ever felt. Bui it was 
replied that there were other considerations 
combined with the whole system and harmony 
of nature, which ought to have greater author- 
ity with a rational mind than any single and 
individual impression of sense, which evidently 
violates its general order. The correspondence 
came to this issue at last, that, as he agreed 
with the church as she now exists, in most of 
her doctrines, and especially in the moral pre- 
cepts of religion, he should begin his course 
by inculcating only those principles in which 
all were agreed, and if he found the promise 
of his vision verified in his returning strength 
and successful eloquence, he would then have 
sufficient encouragement to proceed further. 
He actually came to New York with the in- 
tention to put this experiment into execution, 
but died in that city shortly after his landing. 
He published one discourse introductory to 
the design. 
3 



ILLUSIONS. 



ILLUSIONS. 



The following observations are from Br" 
llush, found in his Treatise on Diseases of the 5 
Mind. ' By this term, (Illusions) J mean that 
disease, in which false perceptions take place 
in the ears and eyes in the waking state, from 
a morbid affection of the brain, or of the sense 
which is the seat of the illusion. It may be 
considered as a waking dream. Persons af- 
fected with it fancy they hear voices, or see 
objects that do not exist. These false percep- 
tions are said, by superstitious people, to be 
premonitions of death. They sometimes indi- 
cate either the forming state, or the actual ex- 
istence of disease, which being seated most 
commonly in a highly vital part of the body, 
that is, in the brain, now and then ends in 
death, and thus administers support to super- 
stition. They depend, like false perception in 
madness, upon motion being excited in a part 
of the ear or the eye, which does not vibrate 
with the impression made upon it, but com- 
municates it to a part upon which the impres- 
sion of the noise heard, or of the person seefiy 



ILLUSIONS. 27 

was formerly made, and hence the one be- 
comes audible, and the other visible. 

* The deception, when made upon the ears, 
consists most commonly in hearing our own 
names, and for this obvious reason ; we are 
accustomed to hear them pronounced more 
frequently than any other words, and hence 
the part of the ear, which vibrates with the 
sound of our names, moves more promptly, 
from habit, than any other part of it. For the 
same reason the deception, when made upon 
the eyes, consists in seeing our own persons, 
or the persons of our intimate friends, whether 
living or dead, oftener than any other people. 
The part upon the retina, from which those 
images are reflected, move more promptly, 
from habit, than any other of that part of the 
organ of vision. 

'The voice which is supposed to be heard, 
and the objects which are supposed to be seen, 
are never heard nor seen by two persons, even 
when they are close to each other. This 
proves them both to be the effect of disease in 
the single person who hears, or sees, the sup- 
posed voice or object.' 

Dr Rush has recorded numerous instances 



28 ILLUSIONS. 

of partial mental derangement from hypochon- 
driasis, chiefly from his own knowledge, such 
as the following. A sea captain believed that 
he had a wolf in his liver ; others that they are 
converted into an animal of another species, 
such as a goose, a dog, a cat, a hare, a cow, 
and the like. One imagined that he was once 
a calf, and mentions the name of the butcher 
that killed him, and the stall in the Philadel- 
phia market, on which his flesh was sold, pre- 
viously to his animating his present body. 
One believed that he had no soul. Another 
that he is transformed into a plant, and insist- 
ed on being watered in common with all the 
plants around him in the garden. Another 
that his body was transformed into glass. The 
celebrated Cowper suffered much anguish from 
complaints of a similar nature, arising from 
hypochondriac affection. 

Among the causes of nervous affection and 
diseased imagination, are those of sedentary 
habits and a free use of strong tea. The fol- 
lowing instances were communicated by my 
friend the Rev. Mr K. 

The late Rev. Mr F. of Ipswich, who was 
very sedentary ; spent most of his time in his 



ILLUSIONS. 29 

study without exercise, and his health became 
impaired. He imagined for some time before 
his death, that he was actually dead. I saw 
him in this state of mind, walking his chamber 
in extreme agitation. To the question, how 
he could suffer so much, if actually dead, he 
answered, that his own spirit was departed, 
and that another spirit had taken possession of 
his body. 

A gentleman in Boston once told the first 
President Adams, that he had become strange- 
ly timid, that he dared not keep the side walks, 
but walked in the middle of the street, being 
constantly apprehensive that the tile on the 
houses would fall on his head. The president 
asked him if he made a free use of tea, and 
being answered in the affirmative, he recom- 
mended to him to use it more sparingly and 
he would probably be benefited by the change. 
By pursuing this advice, he was relieved, and 
was soon able to return to the side walks with- 
out fear. 

A gentleman of Salem, sailing from the 
south to Massachusetts, while under the influ- 
ence of nervous affection, imagined that he 
saw a man in the water near the ship, who 
3* 



30 ILLUSIONS. 

was drowning. Conceiving that he might 
save his life, he was in the very act of leaping 
into the sea for that purpose, but was happily 
prevented by those on deck. He afterward 
recovered his health, and had a perfect recol- 
lection of his feelings on that occasion. He 
had no idea of destroying himself, but would 
have perished had he not been prevented. 
Instances of a similar nature have probably 
occurred, in which lives have been lost in con- 
sequence of such delusion. 

It is said that Mr Murdock, the member of 
the Vermont Legislature, who recently com- 
mitted suicide, imagined himself to be Dr 
Cleaveland, who was under sentence of death. 
Mr Murdock attempted to speak when Cleave- 
land' s case was before the legislature, but was 
so much agitated that he could not speak, and 
was taken from the house by his friends. Un- 
der this strong impression of his being Cleave- 
land, he killed himself to avoid the doom of the 
law. This event would make a thrilling chap- 
ter in Sir Walter Scott's history of Demonolo- 
gy and Witchcraft. 

It will aid our purpose to relate the follow- 
ing instance of Mr Nicolai, an intelligent 



ILLUSIONS. 31 

bookseller and member of the Academy of 
Sciences of Berlin, who happily possessed phi- 
losophy enough to account for the phantasms 
which, for some time agitated his own mind, 
upon rational principles. ' In the year 1791, 1 
was much affected in my mind by several in- 
cidents of a very disagreeable nature ; and on 
a certain day a circumstance occurred, which 
irritated me extremely. At ten o'clock in the 
forenoon, my wife and another person came to 
console me. I was in a violent perturbation 
of mind, owing to a series of incidents which 
had altogether wounded my moral feelings, 
and from which I saw no possibility of relief; 
when suddenly I observed at the distance of 
ten paces from me, a figure ; the figure of a 
deceased person. I pointed at it, and asked 
my wife if she did not see it. She saw no- 
thing ; but being much alarmed, endeavored to 
compose me, and sent for the physician. The 
figure remained seven or eight minutes, and at 
length I became a little more calm ; and as I 
was extremely exhausted, I soon afterwards 
fell into a troubled kind of slumber, which 
lasted for half an hour. The vision was as- 
cribed to the great agitation of mind in which 



32 ILLUSIONS, 

I had been, and it was supposed I should have 
nothing more to apprehend from that cause ; 
but the violent affection had put my nerves 
into some unnatural state ; from this arose fur- 
ther consequences which require a more de- 
tailed description. In the afternoon a little 
after four o'clock, the figure which I had seen 
in the morning again appeared. I was alone 
when this happened, a circumstance, which, 
as may easily be conceived, could not be very 
agreeable. I went therefore to the apartment 
of my wife, to whom I related it. But thither 
also the figure pursued me. Sometimes it was 
present, sometimes it vanished, but it was al- 
ways the same standing figure. A little after 
six o'clock, several stalking figures also ap- 
peared, but they had no connexion with the 
standing figure. The figure of the deceased 
person never appeared to me after the first 
dreadful day ; but several other figures showed 
themselves afterwards very distinctly ; some- 
times such as I knew, mostly however, of per- 
sons I did not know, and amongst those known 
to me, were the semblance of both living and 
deceased persons, but mostly the former ; and 
I made the observation, that acquaintance with 



ILLUSIONS. 33 

whom I daily conversed never appeared to me 
as phantasms ; it was always such as were at a 
distance. These figures appeared to me at all 
times, and under the most different circum- 
stances, equally distinct and clear. Whether 
I was alone or in company, by broad day 
light equally as in the night time, in my own 
house as well as in my neighbor's ; yet, when I 
was at another person's house, they were less 
frequent, and when I walked the public street, 
they very seldom appeared. When I shut my 
eyes, sometimes the figures disappeared, some- 
times they remained even after I closed them. 
If they vanished in the former case, on open- 
ing my eyes again, nearly the same figures ap- 
peared which I had seen before. For the 
most part I saw human figures of both sexes ; 
they commonly passed to and fro, as if they 
had no connexion with each other, like people 
at a fair, where all is bustle ; sometimes they 
appeared to have business with each other. 
Once or twice I saw amongst them persons on 
horseback, and dogs and birds ; these figures 
all appeared to me in their natural size, as 
distinctly as if they had existed in real life, 
with the several tints on the uncovered 



34 ILLUSIONS, 

parts of the body, and with all the different 
kinds and colors of clothes. On the whole, 
the longer I continued in this state, the more 
did the phantasms increase, and the appari- 
tions became more frequent. About four 
weeks afterwards, I began to hear them speak, 
sometimes the phantasms spoke with one 
another ; but for the most part they addressed 
themselves to me; these speeches were in gen- 
eral short, and never contained anything dis- 
agreeable. Intelligent and respected friends 
often appeared to me, who endeavored to con- 
sole me in my grief, which still left deep traces 
on my mind. This speaking I heard most 
frequently when I was alone ; though I some- 
times heard it in company, intermingled with 
the conversation of real persons, frequently in 
single phrases only, but sometimes even in con- 
nected discourse. Though at this time I en- 
joyed rather a good state of health both in body 
and mind, and had become so familiar with 
these phantasms, that at last they did not ex- 
cite the least disagreeable emotion, but on the 
contrary afforded me frequent subjects for 
amusement and mirth ; yet as the disorder sen- 
sibly increased, and the figures appeared t$ 



ILLUSIONS. 35 

hie the whole day together, and even during 
the night, if I happened to awake, I had re- 
course to several medicines. Had I not been 
able to distinguish phantasms from phenomena, 
I must have been insane. Had I been fanatic 
or superstitious, I should have been terrified at 
my own phantasms, and probably might have 
been seized with some alarming disorder. 
Had I been attached to the marvellous, I 
should have sought to magnify my own import- 
ance, by asserting that I had seen spirits ; and 
who could have disputed the facts with me ? 
In this case, however, the advantage of sound 
philosophy and deliberate observation may be 
seen. Both prevented me from becoming 
either a lunatic or an enthusiast; for with 
nerves so strongly excited, and blood so quick 
in circulation, either misfortune might have 
easily befallen me. But I considered the phan- 
tasms that hovered around me as what they 
really were, namely, the effects of disease, and 
made them subservient to my observations, be- 
cause I consider observation and reflection as 
the basis of all rational philosophy.' This gen- 
tleman had been accustomed to lose blood 
twice a year, but it was omitted at this time, 



36 ILLUSIONS. 

and having suffered so much by the neglect, 
he again had recourse to blood letting and 
was soon relieved of all his phantasms. 

The following article is contained in the 
Edinburgh Journal of Science, conducted by 
Dr Brewster, who says of the narrator of the 
case, that, his station in society and as a man 
of science, would authenticate the minutest 
particulars in his narrative, and satisfy the 
most scrupulous reader that the case has been 
philosophically as well as faithfully described/ 
The narrator is in fact the husband of the lady 
who was the subject of the disease. 

' On the twentysixth of December, 1829, about 
half past four o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs B. 
was standing near the fire in the hall, and on 
the point of going up stairs to dress, when she 
heard, as she supposed, my voice calling her 
by name, — Come here, come tome! She im- 
agined that I was calling at the door to have it 
opened, went to it, and was surprised on open- 
ing it to find no one. She returned toward 
the fire, and again heard the same voice, call- 
ing very distinctly and loud, — Come, come 
here. She then opened two other doors of the 
same room, but seeing no one, she returned to 



ILLUSIONS. 37 

the fire-place. After a few minutes, she heard 
the same voice, still calling — ' Come to me, 
come, come away ;' this time in a loud, plain- 
tive, and somewhat impatient tone. She an- 
swered as loudly — ' Where are you? I don't 
know where you are' — still imagining that I 
was somewhere in search of her ; but receiv- 
ing no answer, she shortly went up stairs. On 
my return to the house about half an hour af- 
terwards, she inquired why I had called to her 
so often, and were I was; and was of course 
surprised to hear I had not been near the 
house at the time. 

On the 30th of the same month, at about 
four o'clock, P. M., Mrs B. came down stairs 
into the drawing room, which she had quitted 
a few minutes before, and on entering the room, 
saw me, as she supposed, standing with my 
back to the fire. She addressed me, asking 
how it was I had returned so soon. (I had 
left the house for a walk half an hour before.) 
She said I looked fixedly at her with a serious 
and thoughtful expression of countenance, but 
did not speak. She supposed I was busied in 
thought, and sat down in an arm-chair near 
the fire, and within a couple of feet at 
4 



38 ILLUSIONS. 

most of the figure she still saw standing before 
her. As, however, the eyes still continued to 
be fixed upon her, after a few moments she 
said — ' Why don't you speak — V The figure 
upon this moved off towards the window at the 
farther end of the room, the eyes still gazing 
on her, and passed so very close to her in do- 
ing so, that she was struck by the circum- 
stance of hearing no step nor sound, nor feel- 
ing her clothes brushed against, nor even any 
agitation of the air. The idea then arose for 
the first time into her mind, that it was no 
reality, but a spectral illusion, (being a person 
of sense and habituated to account rationally 
formost things, the notion of anything super- 
natural was out of the question.) She recol- 
lected, however, your having mentioned that 
there was a sort of experimentum crucis, appli- 
cable to these cases, by which a genuine ghost 
may be distinguished from one conjured up by 
merely natural causes ; namely, the pressing 
the eye in order to produce the effect of seeing 
double, when, according to your assertion, a 
true Tartarean ghost may be duplicated as 
well as everything else ; while the morbid 
idea being, I suppose, an impression on the 



ILLUSIONS. 



39 



retina, would or ought to remain single. T 
am sorry, however, to say, that the opportunity 
for verifying your theory was unfavorable. 
Before Mrs B. was able distinctly to double 
her vision, my figure had retreated to the win- 
dow and disappeared there. The lady follow- 
ed, shook the curtains, and tried the windows, 
being still loth to believe it was not a reality, 
so distinct and forcible was the impression. 
Finding, however, that there was no natural 
means of egress, she became convinced of 
having seen a spectral apparition, such as are 
recorded in Dr Hibbert's work, and conse- 
quently felt no alarm or agitation. The ap- 
pearance lasted four or five minutes. It was 
bright daylight, and Mrs B. is confident that 
the apparition was fully as vivid as the reality ; 
and when standing close to her, it concealed, 
of course, the real objects behind it. Upon 
being told of this my visible appearance in 
the spirit, having been only audible a few days 
before, I was, as you may imagine, more 
alarmed for the health of the lady than for 
my own approaching death, or any other fatal- 
ity the vision might be supposed to forebode. 
Still both the stories were so very much en 



40 ILLUSIONS. 

regie as ghost stories, the three calls of the 
plaintive voice, each one louder than the pre- \ 
ceding, the fixed eye and mournful expression 
of the phantom, its noiseless step and spirit- 
like vanishing, were all so characteristic of the 
wraith, that I might have been unable to 
shake off some disagreeable fancies, such as a 
mind once deeply saturated with the poison of 
nursery-tales cannot altogether banish, had it 
not been for a third apparition, at whose visit 
I myself assisted, a few days afterwards, and 
which I think is the key-stone of the case, 
rendering it as complete as could be wished. 

On the 4th of this month, January, 1830, 
five days after the last apparition, at about ten 
o'clock at night, I was sitting in the drawing- 
room with Mrs B. and in the act of stirring 
the fire, when she exclaimed, ' Why, there 5 s 
the cat in the room ! ' I asked ' Where V 
She replied, ' There, close to you.' ' Where? 1 
I repeated. ' Why, on the rug, to be sure, be- 
tween yourself and the coal-scuttle.' I had 
the poker in my hand, and I pushed in the 
direction mentioned. ' Take care/ she cried 
out, ' take care, you are hitting her with the 
poker, 5 I again asked her to point out exactly 



ILLUSIONS. 41 

1 where she saw the cat. She replied, ' Why, 
sitting up there close to your feet, on the rug : 
— she is looking at me. It is Kitty, come 
here Kitty.' There are two cats in the house, 
one of which went by this name. They are 
rarely, if ever in the drawing-room. At this 
time Mrs B. had certainly no idea that the 
sight of the cat was an illusion. I asked her 
to touch it. She got up for the purpose, and 
seemed, too, as if she was pursuing something 
which moved away. She followed a few steps, 
and then said, — ■ It has gone under that chair.' 
I told her it was an illusion. She would not 
believe it. I lifted up the chair ; there was no- 
thing there, nor did Mrs B. see anything more 
of it. I searched the room all over, and found 
nothing. There was a dog lying on the 
hearth, who would have betrayed great un- 
easiness had a cat been in the room. He was 
perfectly quiet. In order to be quite certain, 
I rung the bell and sent for the cats. They 
were both found in the housekeeper's room. 
The most superstitious person could now 
doubt no longer as to the real character of all 
these illusory appearances, and the case is so 
complete, that I hope there will be no renewal 
4* 



42 ILLUSIONS. 

of them, symptomatic as they of course are of 
a disordered state of the body. I am sorry to 
say Mrs B. as well as myself, forgot to try in 
time the experimentum ciucis on the cat. Mrs 
B. has naturally a morbidly sensitive imagina- 
tion, so strongly affecting her corporeal im- 
pressions, that the story of any person having 
severe pain by accident, or otherwise, will oc- 
casionally produce acute twinges of pain in 
the correspondent part in her own person. An 
account, for instance, of the amputation of an 
arm, will produce ^an instantaneous and severe 
sense of pain in her own arm ; and so of other 
relations. She is subject to talk in her sleep, 
with great fluency ; to repeat poetry very much 
at length, particularly when unwell, and even 
cap verses for half an hour together, never 
failing to quote lines beginning with the final 
letter of the preceding till her memory is ex- 
hausted. 

She has, during the last six weeks, been 
considerably reduced and weakened, by a tire- 
some cough, which has also added to her 
weakness by preventing the taking a daily 
tonic, to which she had been for some time 
accustomed. She had also confined herself 



ILLUSIONS, 43 

from this cause to the house for some weeks, 
which is not usual with her, being accustomed 
to take a great deal of air and exercise. Her 
general health for some time past has not been 
strong, and a long experience has proved be- 
yond a doubt, that her ill health is attributable 
to a disordered state of the digestive organs. 
These details are necessary for a complete 
understanding of this case, which strikes me 
as one of remarkable interest, from combining 
the character of an ordinary ghost story with 
those of an indubitable illusion, as well as 
from the circumstance occurring to a person 
of strong mind, devoid of any superstitious 
fancies, and to be implicitly relied on for the 
truth of the minutest details of the appearan- 
ces. Indeed, I do not recollect any well au- 
thenticated and recent instances of auricular 
delusion like the first of those I have related, 
though of course the warning voices and 
sounds which have frightened too many weak 
persons into their graves, must have been of 
this nature. Mrs B. tells me that about ten 
years ago a similar circumstance happened to 
her when residing in Florence, and in perfect 
health. While undressing after a ball, she 
4t 



44 ILLUSIONS. 

heard a voice call her repeatedly by name, and 
was at that time unable to account for the 
fact. 

It was nearly a month after the last occur* 
rence, that Mrs B. was preparing for bed at 
about eleven o'clock at night, and after some-' 
what a fatiguing day, and sitting before the 
dressing glass occupied in arranging her hair. 
She describes her state of mind at the time as 
listless and drowsy, but fully awake ; indeed 
her fingers were in active motion among the 
papillotes, when she was suddenly startled by 
seeing in the mirror the figure of a near rela- 
tive (at the time in Scotland) over her left 
shoulder ; her eyes meeting his in the glass. 
The figure was enveloped in grave clothes, 
closely pinned as is usual with corpses round 
the head and under the chin. Though the 
eyes were open, the features were solemn and 
rigid. The dress was decidedly a shroud, as 
Mrs B. remarked even the punctured pattern 
worked in a peculiar manner round the edges 
of that garment. Mrs B. describes herself as 
sensible of a feeling like fascination, compel- 
ling her for a time to gaze on this melancholy 
apparition, which was as distinct and vivid as 



ILLUSIONS. 45 

any reflected reality could be ; the light of the 
candles on the dressing table appearing to 
shine fully upon it. After a few minutes she 
turned round to look for the reality of the form 
over her shoulder. It was not, however, visible ; 
and had also disappeared from the glass when 
she looked in that direction again. Coupled 
with the previous illusions I related to you, 
this last apparition becomes more interesting 
than it would be alone. In the first place, its 
melancholy and indeed horrible character, dis- 
tinguishes it from the others, but brings it still 
nearer the ordinary stories of supernatural vis- 
itation. At the same time the possible contin- 
uance of such spectral appearances is highly 
disagreeable, however firm the lady's nerves, 
and however sound her philosophy. 2d. The 
mind in this case seems not to have had the 
remotest influence in raising or dissipating the 
illusion. Mrs B. is convinced there was no train 
of thought previously passing through her mind, 
likely to have the slightest association with the 
idea of the relative, whose form she suddenly 
saw with all the distinctness of reality. 3d. 
The former illusions might be supposed ideas 



46 ILLUSIONS. 

of sensation, sounds, or pictures reproduced, 
with extraordinary vividness in the same shape 
and character, in which they had been per- 
ceived by and stored up in the mind. But in 
this last case there is a new combination of 
ideas which never entered the mind in con- 
nexion. 

The union of the well known features with 
the shroud, must have been a pure effort of, or 
creation of the mind. There seems, therefore, 
no reason why, under the same disposition of 
the nervous system, any monstrous creation of 
the faculty we call imagination might not be 
produced to the eyes and other senses ; indeed, 
with all the qualities that constitute reality, ex- 
cept their endurance, though this should hard- 
ly be excepted, since there can be no reason 
why the appearances may not endure, by a 
continuance of the conditions for days, or 
months. I need hardly say that the relative, 
whose ghost was seen after so dismal a fashion, 
was at the time in perfect health. Had it 
been otherwise, and the apparition coincided 
with illness or death, as has no doubt frequent- 
ly happened in other instances, our philosophy 
would have had to stand a severe trial. 5 
4f 



IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 47 



IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 

The influence of the imagination on the 
nervous system has on some occasions produc- 
ed effects bordering on a state of insanity. It 
deprives the mind of all correct reasonings, 
perverts the understanding with which we are 
endowed by our Creator to regulate our belief, 
guide us in our pursuits, and enable us to trace 
effects to their true causes. Instances are not 
wanting, in which the imagination has been 
so highly excited as to produce fatal effects. 
We have on record, among others, the story 
of a German student, who dreamed he was to 
die at a certain hour the next day. He imme- 
diately made his will, and prepared himself for 
the awful event. Every argument was used 
to convince him that no dependence is to be 
put in dreams, but without shaking his belief, 
and as the hour approached, he exhibited the 
alarming signs of death. He watched the 
clock with the greatest anxiety, till his attend- 
ing physician contrived to place the hands of 
the clock beyond the specified hour, when his 
mind was relieved from the impression, and 



48 IMAGINATION AND FEAR, 

he was rejoiced to find that he might still coil-' 
tinue to live in despite of his dream. In 
another instance, a man whose nervous system 
was impaired, and imagination excited, con- 
ceived the extravagant idea, that his legs were 
made of glass, and would use no exercise lest 
he should break them. He was prevailed on, 
however, to ride, and the carriage was design- 
edly overset, when he was soon convinced that 
his legs were made of the substantial materials 
intended by nature. A few years since, Eli- 
jah Barns of Pennsylvania, killed a rattlesnake 
in his field without any injury to himself, and 
immediately after put on his son's waistcoat, 
mistaking it for his own, both being of one co- 
lor. He returned to his house, and on at- 
tempting to button his waistcoat, he found to 
his astonishment that it was much too small. 
His imagination was now wrought to a high 
pitch, and he instantly conceived the idea that 
he had been bitten imperceptibly by the snake, 
and was thus swollen from its poison. He 
grew suddenly very ill, and took to his bed. 
The family in great alarm and confusion sum- 
moned three physicians, and the usual reme- 
dies were prescribed and administered. The 



IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 49 

patient, however, grew worse and worse every 
minute, until at length his son came home 
with his father's waistcoat dangling about him. 
The mystery was instantly unfolded, and the 
patient being relieved from his imaginary ap- 
prehensions, dismissed his physicians, and was 
restored to health. 

The philosophy of mind is a study of pecu- 
liar interest, and after all our powers of re- 
search are exhausted, numerous phenomena 
will remain inexplicable. Indeed our mental 
faculties are continually overwhelmed with 
things inexplicable. We too often embrace 
for substantial truths mere phantoms, which 
vanish into air, and leave the mind to deplore 
its own imbecility. While superstition weak- 
ens our moral virtues, and the influence of 
imagination deludes our intellectual powers., 
the passion of fear has a pernicious and even a 
hazardous tendency. It is the passion, which 
most of all others, exerts its effects directly on 
the heart ; on some occasions, it produces in- 
stant death, and in numerous instances, it lays 
a foundation for a chronic disease of that vital 
organ, which, after a long duration of distress- 
ing complaints, has a fatal termination. Not 



50 IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 

long since, an instance was published, of a 
child having died of a disease of the heart, in 
consequence of a fright received by being 
thrown upwards and caught in its fall for 
amusement. 

Few persons are aware of the extreme dan- 
ger of sudden fright on timid minds. The 
most melancholy consequences have on some 
occasions resulted from stratagems with effi- 
gies, representing apparitions for innocent and 
momentary amusement. Instances are not 
wanting of a total loss of intellect during life, 
from such inexcusable folly. Parents and 
nurses should carefully avoid imbuing the 
minds of children with idle stories of ghosts 
and apparitions. The following facts, select- 
ed from numerous others, will illustrate the ef- 
fects of terror on the mind. In a poor-house 
in Haerlem, a girl was seized with a convul- 
sive disorder, which returned in regular par- 
oxysms; not long after, another was taken, 
and others in succession, till all the boys and 
girls in the house were affected in a similar 
manner. The medical prescriptions failed to 
perform a cure. At length the celebrated Dr 
Boerhaave, ascribing the occurrences to the 



IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 51 

a habit of imitation, ordered several furnaces to 
r be placed in the chamber. Over the burning 
r coals a number of crooked irons were laid, 
, i and the doctor ordered his attendants to burn 
the arm of the first child, who should be seized 
I in a fit, even to the bone. This alarming re- 
medy produced the desired effect ; their imag- 
ination was overpowered by the force of fear, 
and not a case of the kind again occurred. 
In a family of six children, one of them was 
afflicted with convulsive affections ; all the 
others exhibited the symptoms of the same 
disorder, by imitation. No remedy could re- 
move the extraordinary affection, till the father 
placed a block and an axe in their view, and 
declared that he would decapitate the first one 
who should exhibit any more gestures, except 
the first one taken. By this expedient, all 
imitation and imaginary feelings were over- 
come, and the five last were happily delivered 
from the nervous agitations. With respect to 
the appearance of ghosts and apparitions, it 
cannot be doubted, but many of the reports 
found on record, or repeated by tradition, were 
mere illusions of imagination, or fictions, con- 
trived solely to amuse, or to answer some par- 



52 Il^lAGrNATION AND EEAR. 

ticular purpose ; and too many have been the 
dupes of implicit faith, without examining the 
affair with that jealous attention which it re- 
quired. It is not improbable, that in many in- 
stances, hobgoblin stories may be explained by 
the deceptive powers of ventriloquism. We 
have had auricular demonstration of the ex- 
traordinary powers of ventriloquists ; they can 
counterfeit the voices of animals and all imag 
inable noises, at pleasure, and conjure up a 
ghost or witch on any occasion. Although 
ventriloquism was not practised, as an art, in 
ancient times, it was not unknown, and indi- 
viduals possessing that faculty might have put 
it in operation, on particular occasions, without 
suspicion. In most cases of supposed appari- 
tions and spectres, the reports originated with 
timorous and credulous persons, or those of 
questionable character. The scene is always 
exhibited in the night, when the eye is pre- 
pared to see frightful spectres, and the imagi- 
nation is awaked to magnify every object, 
whether real or unreal. 

' All things are full of horror and affright, 
And dreadful even the silence of the night.' 
The darkness of the night, the gloom and 



I31AGINATION AND FEAR. 53 

e horror produced by the report of haunted 
J; houses, or some disastrous occurrence, as 
•; murder or robbery in a particular situation, 
and a state of mind naturally depressed and 
melancholy, have doubtless contributed to 
give a currency to many of those legendary 
stories which have been credulously received 
and disseminated by the vulgar. Those, espe- 
cially, who are trembling with a guilty con- 
science, are liable to deception ; even the most 
intrepid have been alarmed, when in the night, 
posts, trees, and other objects, have been pre- 
sented in a distorted form. We are familiar 
with the story of the frightened person, who, 
on passing a church-yard in the night, con- 
ceited that he saw a ghost clothed in white ; 
but on examination it proved to be no other 
than a white horse. A few years ago, Dr 
Stearns was travelling from Boston to Salem 
in the evening, having a considerable sum of 
money about him. He suffered himself to be 
strongly impressed with the apprehension of 
being robbed. While his mind was wrought 
up to the highest pitch, he imagined that a 
robber approached him with a club suspended 
over his head, and demanded his money. He 



54 IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 



instantly took out his pocket book and threw 
it on the ground, and in great affright droved 
off with all speed. Having procured assist 
ance and lights, they visited the spot in search 
of the robber, when to their surprise they 
found a pump standing near the road, having 
its handle turned upwards, and the doctor's 
pocket book instead of being in the hands of 
a robber, was found lying beside the pump. 

Were all the supposed apparitions and spec- 
tres to be met with the intrepidity displayed in 
the following instance, ghost stories would 
seldom be repeated. About the latter part of 
the last century, a Mr Blake, of Hingham, 
Massachusetts, was passing the church-yard in 
the night, when he saw an object in human 
form, clothed in white, sitting near an open 
tomb. Resolving to satisfy himself, he walked 
tow r ard it. The form moved as he approached, 
and endeavored to elude his pursuit ; when he 
ran, the object ran before him, and after turn- 
ing in different directions, descended into the 
tomb. Mr Blake followed, and there found a 
woman, who was in a deranged state of mind, 
who had covered herself with a sheet, and was 
roaming among the silent tombs. 



IMAGINATION AND FEAR. OO 

The passion of fear is implanted in our na- 
.ure for wise purposes. It prompts us to self 
defence and the avoidance of evil. It is ex- 
cited into action by various causes, depending 
] on the condition of the nerves in different con- 
stitutions, or in the same at different times. 
But when extended to imaginary objects of 
! terror, fear becomes superstition, as by a sort 
of instinct, and has a direct tendency to cher- 
ish ignorance and credulity. Dr Franklin 
had no faith in apparitions and spectres, but 
he proposed to a friend, that the one which 
should die first, should return in spirit and visit 
the survivor ; his friend died first, but his spirit 
never returned. The strong mind of Dr 
Samuel Johnson was not altogether free from 
agitation and embarrassment, when contem- 
plating the question of the appearance of in- 
corporeal spirits in our world. This great 
man said to Mr Boswell, his biographer, 
1 it is wonderful that 5000 years have now 
elapsed since the creation of the world, and 
still it is undecided whether or not there has 
ever been an instance, in modern times, of the 
spirit of any person appearing after death. 
All argument is against it, but all belief is for 
5 



56 IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 

it.' Boswell suggested, as an objection, tha 
if spirits are in a state of happiness, it woulc 
be a punishment to them to return to this 
world ; and if they are in a state of misery, ii 
would be giving them a respite. Johnson re- 
plied, that ' as the happiness or misery oi 
spirits depends not upon place, but is intellect 
ual, we cannot say, that they are less happy or 
less miserable, by appearing upon earth/ 
Johnson observed, that he makes a distinction 
between what a man may experience by the 
mere strength of his imagination, and what 
imagination cannot possibly produce. Thus, 
said he, f suppose I should think that I saw a 
form, and heard a voice say, Johnson, you are 
a very wicked fellow, and unless you repent, 
you will certainly be punished ; my own un- 
worthiness is so deeply impressed upon my 
mind, that I might imagine I thus saw and 
heard, and therefore I should not believe that 
an external communication had been made to 
me. But, if a form should appear, and a voice 
should tell me, that a particular man had died 
at a particular place, and a particular hour, a 
fact which I had no apprehension of, nor any 
means of knowing, and this fact, with all its 



IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 57 

lj circumstances, should afterwards be unques- 
tionably proved, I should in that case be per- 
suaded, that I had supernatural intelligence 
imparted to me. 5 Johnson related a story of 
a ghost, said to have appeared to a young 
woman several times, advising her to apply to 
an attorney for the recovery of an old house, 
which was done, and at the same time saying 
the attorney would do nothing, which proved 
to be the fact. 

About the middle of the last century, there 
were reports of a ghost visiting a house in 
Cocklane, in the city of London. The whole 
city was, for many weeks, kept in a state of 
agitation and alarm, and the magazines and 
newspapers teemed with strange accounts of 
the Cocklane ghost. The story, at length, be- 
came so popular, and created such excitement, 
as to require a thorough investigation. The 
purport of the story was, that a spirit had fre- 
quently appeared, and announced to a girl, that 
a murder had been committed near that place, 
by a certain person, which ought to be detect- 
ed. For a long time, unaccountable noises, 
such as knocking, scratching on the walls of 
the house, &c, were heard every night. The 



58 IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 

supposed spirit had publicly promised, by an 
affirmative knock, that it would attend any 
person into the vault under the church where 
the body was deposited, and would give a 
knock on the coffin ; it was, therefore, deter- 
mined to make this trial of the visitation and 
veracity of the supposed spirit. On this occa- 
sion, Dr Johnson, with several clergymen and 
other gentlemen and ladies, assembled about 
ten o'clock at night, in the house in which the 
girl had, with proper caution, been put to bed 
by several ladies. More than an hour passed, 
without hearing any noise, when at length the 
gentlemen were summoned into the girPs 
chamber, by some ladies who were near her 
bed, and had heard knocks and scratches. 
When the gentlemen entered, the girl declared 
that she felt the spirit like a mouse upon her 
back. She was required to hold her hands 
out of bed, and from that time, though the 
spirit was very solemnly required to manifest 
its existence by appearance, by impression on 
the hand or body of any one present, by 
knocks, or scratches, or any other agency, no 
evidence of any preternatural power was ex- 
hibited. The spirit was then very seriously 



IMAGINATION AND FEAfi, 59 

advertised, that the person to whom the prom- 
ise was made of striking on the coffin, was 
then about to visit the vault, and that the per- 
formance of the promise was then claimed. 
The company at 1 o'clock went into the 
church, and the gentleman to whom the prom- 
ise was made, went with another into the 
vault. The spirit was solemnly required to 
perform its promise, but nothing more than 
silence ensued. The person supposed to be 
accused by the spirit then went down with 
several others, but no effect whatever was 
perceived. Upon their return they examined 
the girl, but could draw no confession from 
her, and the father of the girl, when interro- 
gated, denied in the strongest terms, any 
knowledge or belief of fraud. It was there- 
fore published by the whole assembly, that the 
girl had some art of making or counterfeiting 
a particular noise, and that there was no 
agency of any higher cause. Thus ended 
this singular affair, which had so long been 
permitted to disturb the peace of the city and 
of the public. The greatest surprise is, that 
an artful, mischievous girl, should be suffered 
5* 



GO IMAGINATION AND PEAR, 

to set at defiance the closest scrutiny to detect 
her imposition and deception. 

The following anecdote may be found in 
some historical publication, but is now related 
from memory without recollecting the authority. 
After the execution of Charles the First, the 
Parliament resolved that every vestige of roy- 
alty should be annihilated. For this purpose, 
commissioners were appointed to carry into 
effect the decree in the Palace of the late 
King. While executing their prescribed 
duties, the commissioners were from day to day 
annoyed and disturbed by strange and frightful 
noises, in various parts of the house. Logs of 
wood rolling over the floor in the kitchen, 
various utensils clattering together, dancing 
and stamping were heard in rooms whose 
doors were closed, and to such alarming heights 
was ihe deception carried that the commis- 
sioners were about to abandon the house, from 
the belief that it was haunted by evil spirits. 
At length, on close investigation, the fact was 
disclosed that the whole deception was the 
contrivance of a man of singular art, called 
funny Joe, who was the acting secretary of the 
commissioners. 



IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 61 

In Southey's life of Wesley, we have another 
instance of supposed preternatural noises in 
the parsonage house of Wesley's father, in the 
year 1716. The mysterious noises were said 
to be as various as unaccountable; such as 
knocking at the door, lifting up the latch, and 
a groaning, like a person in distress ; a clatter 
among a number of bottles, as if all at once 
they had been dashed in pieces ; footsteps as 
of a man going up and down stairs, at all 
hours of the night ; sounds like that of danc- 
ing in a room, the door of which was locked ; 
but most frequently, a knocking about the 
beds at night, and in different parts of the 
house. Mr Wesley was once awakened a little 
after midnight, by nine loud and distinct 
knocks which seemed to be in the next room, 
with a pause at every third stroke. He and 
his wife rose, and went below ; a noise was 
now heard, like that of a bag of money pour- 
ed on the floor at their feet. At one time, the 
servant heard his hand-mill in rapid motion, 
without any visible hand to move it. Mr 
Wesley made every exertion to ascertain the 
real cause of the noises, without success. He 
at length became so impatient with the unusual 
5f 



TO IMAGINATION AND FEAR. 

annoyances, that he prepared a pistol, which 
he was about to discharge at the place where 
the noise was heard, but was dissuaded from 
it by a neighboring clergyman, who had been 
called in to his assistance. But he upbraided 
the goblin for disturbing the family, and chal- 
lenged it to appear to him while alone in his 
study, after which, on entering his study, the 
door was pressed against him, but no object 
was seen. At length, the family became so 
familiar with this invisible spirit, that one of 
the daughters gave it the name of Old Jeffrey, 
and they treated it as matter of curiosity and 
amusement. This unaccountable affair excit- 
ed much speculation throughout the country. 
The celebrated Dr Priestley, and many others, 
undertook to investigate the circumstances, 
but were unable to make any satisfactory dis- 
covery, and it remains inexplicable. 

A reviewer of Wesley's life observes, that 
few will regard the circumstances as anything 
more than creatures of imagination, the off- 
spring of credulity and superstition ; but I 
should strongly suspect that some one of the 
family was the prime mover in the business, 
as was funny Joe in the Royal Palace of King 
Charles the First. 



SUPERSTITION. 63 



SUPERSTITION. 



Historical records furnish innumerable in- 
stances of superstition, fraught with circum- 
stances of inexpressible horror. It is an in- 
firmity inherent in our nature, and extremely 
difficult to eradicate ; no lesson on moral evil, 
or lecture on physical destiny, can sever the 
spell or dissolve the dark enchantment. So 
peculiarly fascinating is the love of the mar* 
vellous, that when ignorance and bigotry co- 
operate, the pure fountain of truth is polluted, 
and the most preposterous tales of antiquity are 
held in veneration by every fiery zealot. 
From this cause, millions of innocent lives 
have been sacrificed. The intellects of thous- 
ands have been shackled, and their energies 
perverted by irrational fears, and by degrading 
conceptions of the nature of Deity, and of 
the purposes and modes of religious worship 
and obedience. It was in the darkest days of 
superstition, that the rack was in exercise to 
chain down the understanding, to sink it into 
the most abject and sordid condition, punishing 



64 SUPERSTITION, 

imaginary crimes, and repressing truth and 
philosophical research. 

The science of medicine had to encounter 
the scourge of superstition at an early period ; 
the epithet of magician was applied to the 
physician, who appeared to be endowed with 
superior genius and knowledge. The inquisi- 
tion was constantly prepared to take holy cog- 
nizance of those who distinguished themselves 
by extraordinary cures, and hundreds of mis- 
erable wretches were dragged to the stake for 
this cause alone. Galileo, in the 17th century, 
was condemned by the inquisition to a rigor- 
ous punishment, for his noble and useful dis- 
coveries in astronomy and geometry ; and 
about the same period, Dr Bartolo suffered a 
similar fate at Rome, because he unexpectedly 
cured a nobleman of the gout. 

The University of Salamanca decreed that 
no physician should dare to bleed his patient 
in a pleurisy in the arm of the affected side ; 
declaring that such practice was of no less 
pernicious consequences to medicine, than 
Luther's heresy had been to religion. The 
inquisition having adopted the irrational and 
foolish doctrine that diseases should be ascribed 



SUPERSTITION. 65 

to fascination, a physician who opposed that 
doctrine was compelled to accede to it, and to 
declare that he had seen a beautiful woman 
break a steel mirror to pieces, and blast trees 
by a single glance of her fascinating eyes. 
Superstitious opinions prevailed in regard to 
the cure of diseases, also. Some were sup- 
posed to be cured by a song. Josephus asserted 
that he saw a certain Jew, named Eleazer, 
draw the devil out of an old woman's nostrils, 
by the application of Solomon's seal to her 
nose, in the presence of the Emperor Vespa- 
sian. Numerous remedies were employed for 
expelling the devil, among which was flagel- 
lation, purgatives, and antispasmodics. Sev- 
eral bewitched persons being cured by a plas- 
ter of assafoetida, the question arose, in what 
way this article excited so much efficacy. 
Some supposed, that the devil considered so 
vile an application an insult, and ran off in a 
passion ; but others very sagely observed, that 
as devils are supposed to have eyes and ears, it 
is possible that they have noses also, and that 
it proved offensive to their olfactory nerves. 
It may be observed that superstition is not 
confined to those who are ignorant of the laws 



66 SIPERSTITION. 

of the physical world ; but through the infirmity 
of human nature, it has prevailed to the per- 
version of the profoundest understanding, and 
the purest intellect. It has arrested the pro- 
gress of literature and science, and shackled 
the mind with vulgar fictions, errors, and pre- 
judices. Even the sublime^ genius of Lord 
Bacon was subjected to its influence ; he be- 
lieved in witchcraft, and asserted that he was 
cured of warts by rubbing them with a piece 
of lard with the skin on, and then exposing it 
to the sun. Dr More, and the enlightened 
Cud worth, applied the epithet Atheist to those 
who opposed the belief of witchcraft. The 
celebrated Dr Hoffman, the father of the mod- 
ern theory and practice of medicine, in the 
large edition of his work in 1742, says, that 
the devil can raise storms, produce insects, 
and act upon the animal spirits and imagina- 
tion ; and, in fine, that he is an excellent op- 
tician, and natural philosopher, on account of 
his long experience. 

But, blessed be the Almighty Ruler, the 
present is an era, preeminently distinguished 
for improvement in physical and moral philos- 
ophy;- and forgetting the things that are be- 



SUPERSTITION. 67 

hind, we are pressing forward in the race with 
rapid strides to the melioration of the condition 
of the physical and moral world. Had the 
stupendous works performed, and those con- 
templated at the present day, been predicted to 
our fathers in the 17th century, they would 
have trembled with alarm, lest their posterity 
were destined to form a league with the infer- 
nal powers. The paralyzing idea that the 
present state of knowledge is as perfect as our 
nature will admit, should be utterly reprobated ; 
for knowledge is eternally progressive, and we 
can have no claim to be estimated as the ben- 
efactors of posterity, unless by our own efforts 
and toils we add to the achievements of our 
ancestors. We may take a retrospect of the 
meritorious characters of our fathers with ex- 
ultation, and when disposed to animadvert on 
the frailties and follies peculiar to their times, 
let us reflect that it is our happy lot to live in 
an age in many respects the most glorious the 
world ever knew. We have a moral interest 
in all that concerns the human race, and, as 
philanthropists, we ought to sympathize in every 
calamity with which our species may be afflict- 
ed. Being apprised with what facility mankind 



OS SUPERSTITION. 

deceive themselves, and with what tenacity the 
mind clings to its darling delusion, sober re- 
flection is awakened to a lively sense of the' 
evils resulting from our imperfections. As 
the germs of plants may lie dormant in the 
earth for ages, and be resuscitated, so may the 
troubles created by unhallowed superstition, re- 
vive and be reiterated by means of some de- 
praved spirits in our day. 

Ventriloquism is an art which may be made 
subservient to knavery and deception. An 
ingenious work on this subject was published 
in 1772, by M. de la Chapelle, who was of 
opinion that the responses of many of the 
oracles were delivered by persons thus qualified 
to serve the purposes of priestcraft and delu- 
sion. That ventriloquism may be made thus 
subservient to the purposes of knavery, will 
clearly appear by the following anecdotes. 

Louis Brabant, valet de chambre to Francis 
the First, was a capital ventriloquist, and a 
great cheat. He had fallen in love with a 
young, handsome, and rich heiress ; but was 
rejected by the parents as an unsuitable match 
for their daughter. The young lady's father 
dying, Brabant made a visit to the widow, who 



SUPERSTITION. b\) 

was totally ignorant of his singular talent. 
Suddenly, on his first appearance, in open day, 
and in presence of several persons who were 
with her, she heard herself accosted, in a 
voice perfectly resembling that of her dead 
husband, and which seemed to proceed from 
above, exclaiming, ' Give my daughter in mar- 
riage to Louis Brabant. He is a man of great 
fortune, and of an excellent character. I now 
endure the inexpressible torments of purgatory 
for having refused her to him. If you obey 
this admonition, I shall soon be delivered from 
this place of torment. You will at the same 
time provide a worthy husband for your 
daughter, and procure everlasting repose to 
the soul of your poor husband. 5 The widow 
could not for a moment resist this dread sum- 
mons, which had not the most distant appear, 
ance of proceeding from Louis Brabant, whose 
countenance exhibited no visible change, and 
whose lips were closed and motionless, during 
the delivery of it. Accordingly, she consented 
immediately to receive him for her son-in-law. 
Louis's finances, however, were in a very low 
situation, and the formalities attending the 
marriage contract, rendered it necessary for 



70 SUPERSTITION. 

him to exhibit some show of riches, and not to 
give the ghost the lie direct. He accordingly 
went to work upon a fresh subject, one Cornu, 
an old and rich banker at Lyons, who had 
accumulated immense wealth by usury and 
extortion, and was known to be haunted by 
remorse of conscience on account of the man- 
ner in which he had acquired it. Having 
contracted an intimate acquaintance with this 
man, he one day, while they were sitting to- 
gether in the usurer's little back parlor, artfully 
turned the conversation on religious subjects, 
on demons and spectres, the pains of purgatory 
and the torments of hell. During an interval 
of silence between them, a voice was heard, 
which to the astonished banker seemed to be 
that of his deceased father, complaining, as in 
the former case, of his dreadful situation in 
purgatory, and calling upon him to deliver 
him instantly from thence, by putting into the 
hands of Louis Brabant, a large sum for the 
redemption of Christians then in slavery with 
the Turks ; threatening him at the same time 
with eternal damnation if he did not take this 
method to expiate likewise his own sins. The 
reader will naturally suppose that Brabant 



SUPERSTITION. 71 

affected a due degree of astonishment on the 
occasion, and farther promoted the deception, 
by acknowledging his having devoted himself 
to the prosecution of the charitable design 
imputed to him by the ghost. An old usurer 
is naturally suspicious. Accordingly, the 
wary banker made a second appointment with 
the ghost delegate for the next day ; and to 
render any design of imposing upon him 
utterly abortive, took him into the open fields, 
where not a house, or a tree, or even a bush was 
in sight, capable of screening any supposed 
confederate. This extraordinary caution ex- 
cited the ventriloquist to exert all the powers 
of his art. Wherever the banker conducted 
him, at every step, his ears were saluted on all 
sides with the complaints and groans not only 
of his father, but of all his deceased relations, 
imploring him, for the love of God, and in the 
name of every saint in the calendar, to have 
mercy on his soul and their's, by effectually 
seconding with his purse the intentions of his 
worthy companion. Cornu could no longer 
resist the voice of heaven, and accordingly 
carried his guest home with him, and paid 
him down 10,000 crowns, with which the 



72 SUPERSTITION, 

honest ventriloquist returned to Paris and 
married his mistress. The catastrophe was 
fatal. The secret was afterwards blown, and 
reached the usurer's ears, who was so much 
affected by the loss of his money, and the mor- 
tifying railleries of his neighbors, that he took 
to his bed and died. 

Another French ventriloquist, named M. St 
Gile, was not less adroit in his secret art. 
Entering a convent, and finding the whole 
community in mourning, he inquired the 
cause, and was told that one of their body had 
lately died, who was the delight and ornament 
of the whole society, and they spoke feelingly 
of the scanty honors they had bestowed on his 
memory. Suddenly a voice was heard, appar- 
ently proceeding from that part of the church 
where the singing of the choir is performed, 
lamenting the situation of the defunct in pur- 
gatory, and reproaching the brotherhood with 
their lukewarmness, and want of zeal on his 
account. The friars, as soon as their aston- 
ishment gave them power to speak, consulted 
together, and agreed to acquaint the rest of 
the community with this singular event, so in- 
teresting to the whole society. M. St Gile, 



SUPERSTITION. 73 

d who wished to carry on the joke still farther, 
3 dissuaded them from taking this step, telling 

* them that they would be treated by their absent 
1 brethren, as a set of fools and visionaries. He 

* recommended to them, however, the immedi- 
ately calling of the whole community into the 
church, where the ghost of their departed 
brother might probably reiterate his complaints. 
Accordingly, all the friars, novices, lay broth- 
ers, and even the domestics of the convent, 
were immediately summoned and collected to- 
gether. In a short time the voice from the 
roof renewed its lamentation and reproaches, 
and the whole convent fell on their faces, and 
vowed a solemn reparation. As a first step, 
they chanted a De profundi* in a full choir ; 
during the intervals of which the ghost occa- 
sionally expressed the comfort he received from 
their pious exercises, and ejaculations on his 
behalf. When all was over, the friar entered 
into a serious conversation with M. St Gile ; 
and, on the strength of what had just passed, 
sagaciously inveighed against the absurd in- 
credulity of our modern sceptics and pretended 
philosophers, on the article of ghosts or appari- 
tions. M. St Gile thought it now high time to 



74 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

disabuse the good fathers. This purpose 
however, he found it extremely difficult to ef 
feet, till he had prevailed upon them to return 
with him into the church, and there be wit- 
nesses of the manner in which he had con- 
ducted this ludicrous deception. 



I 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

A belief in the entity of witchcraft and sor- 
cery may boast of a high degree of antiquity. 
In both the Old and New Testament, we ob- 
serve numerous tragical events, bearing the 
semblance of diabolical agency. A prominent 
instance is found in the witch of Endor, who 
is said to have been deeply versed in the art of 
deception, and notorious in her day for skill 
in practical astrology. It is the opinion of 
some divines, that to beguile Saul, she raised 
atteftion, counterfeiting Samuel ; but it seems 
difficult lb decide in what precise manner she 
effected her purpose of imposing upon her 
credulous employer. The sorcery and witch- 
craft, prohibited under the Jewish dispensation, 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 75 

is supposed by high authority to be a very dif- 
ferent species of crime from that which was 
so abhorrent in the days of our ancestors ; the 
former might have come under the description 
of idolatry, or of the heathen mythology. 
' The ancients believed that there were good 
and evil demons, which had influence over the 
minds of men, and that these beings carried on 
an intercourse between men and gods, con- 
veying the addresses of men to the gods, and 
divine benefits to men. Hence, demons be- 
came the objects of worship. It was supposed, 
also, that human spirits, after their departure 
from the body, became demons, and that the 
souls of virtuous men, if highly purified, were 
exalted from demons into gods/ 

The various instances of demoniacs, luna- 
tics, and possessed, recorded in the sacred 
scriptures of the New Testament, have re- 
ceived different interpretations according to 
the particular views among learned expositors. 
By some of the enlightened German theolo- 
gians, those subjects are considered as mere 
prototypes of the maniacs and epileptics of 
our own times ; but most of the English 
divines have imbibed different opinions. 



76 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

1 Demonaics/ says Kenrick, f were persons 
disordered in their understandings, and sup- 
posed to be possessed by an evil demon/ That 
real miracles were wrought by our Saviour 
and his apostles, and that both good and evil 
spirits were subservient to his will, no christian 
believer can ever deny. But by all impartial 
inquirers after truth, it will perhaps be conced- 
ed, that demoniacal possession is a subject the 
least susceptible of a satisfactory solution, of 
any in scripture. It has received the most 
critical investigation of commentators and 
divines, for centuries, and still remains involv- 
ed in mystery. The subject in its nature, is 
too intricate and mysterious to justify even a 
discussion on this occasion, nor is it requisite 
for my purpose. It must, therefore, be referred 
to philosophical commentators and learned 
biblical critics. 

In a work entitled, Historical Essay concern- 
ing Witchcraft, by F. Hutchinson, D. D., pub- 
lished in London in 1720, the author says, 
' The divine writings, as well as the soundest 
philosophy and soberest reason, give confirma- 
tion that there are both good and bad spirits. 
There are superior beings intermediate betwixt 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 77 

the divine nature and ours. But both philos- 
ophers and Christians that have ventured to 
define their natures or works, have been very 
various in their notions respecting them, and 
the holy scriptures, though they give us many 
instances of the employment of both the evil 
• and the good spirits, teach us none such as 
we commonly meet with in the modern rela- 
tions of witchcraft, and the conjoint powers of 
Satan. The holy scriptures tell us of no such 
tales as these which confound the laws of na- 
ture, and absolutely destroy the testimony of 
our senses. J ** # * The human mind is sometimes 
so clouded and oppressed, that persons think 
themselves dead. At another time they are 
elevated far above their natural pitch, full of 
raptures, and high conceits, and think them- 
selves kings and queens ; now if witch stories 
are in their heads, or witchcraft in their imag- 
inations, why may they not think themselves 
bewitched, or fancy themselves witches or 
wizards, as well as kings and queens? ' 

A witch, in her personal character, was 

commonly an uncouth old woman, or hag. 

Her countenance was repulsive, her air and 

gait disgusting, and her general aspect and 

6* 



78 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

movements at variance with a proper demean- 
or. She is supposed to have formed a compact 
with the devil , giving herself up to him body 
and soul. This compact, it is believed, cannot 
be transacted mentally, but the devil must 
appear in bodily shape to the witch. In this 
interview, he delivers to her an imp, or familiar 
spirit, by which she is enabled to transport 
herself in the air, on a broomstick or a spit, 
to distant places in the night to attend witch 
meetings, at which the devil always presides. 
She was supposed to be attended by an old 
gray cat, as her confederate, or imp ; the cat 
and her mistress, it was believed, were often 
overheard plotting their fairy tricks together. 
She was supposed to possess the power of 
transforming herself into a cat, a squirrel, or 
other animal, which she would send abroad to 
execute her commands. These animals could 
not be killed but by a silver bullet, and should 
the animal receive a wound the witch would 
have a wound in the same place. It was 
imagined that the witch, by the aid of Satan, 
had power to inflict death, and various dis- 
eases and evils, on families and individuals, 
and also on cattle, by way of revenge for any 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 7tf 

offence, and could even raise storms and tem- 
pests, and sink ships at sea. 

Numerous legendary tales were formerly 
propagated of haunted houses, where witches 
assembled and held their nightly orgies and 
diabolical revels. These haunts were always 
objects of great terror to the credulous vulgar, 
being considered as a pandemonium of all 
manner of evils, miseries, and calamities. 
The idea, was prevalent, also, that witches 
could bridle men in the night, and ride them 
about at pleasure. The woman who should 
exhibit the characteristics above described, 
was at once stigmatized as being in league 
with the devil, and was treated not only with 
ridicule and contempt, but subjected to un- 
merciful persecution. Ranked among demons, 
instruments of the devil, they were objects of 
no pity, but were viewed with scorn and hor- 
ror. Instances were not wanting of these 
wretched mortals, although entirely innocent, 
becoming so hateful and terrible to all, and be- 
friended by none, that at length they abhorred 
themselves, and were reconciled to be burnt or 
hung, that they might escape the rage of cruel 
persecution. 
6t 



SO WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

The methods put in practice for the discovery 
of witches were various and singular. One 
was, to weigh the suspected woman against the 
church bible, which, if she was guilty, would 
preponderate. Another was to require her to 
repeat the Lord's prayer ; in attempting this, a 
witch will always hesitate and blunder. If a 
witch should Aveep, she could not shed more 
than three tears, and that out of the left eye. 
This deficiency of tears was considered as a 
very substantial proof of guilt. Excrescences 
on the body, from which the imps receive their 
nourishment, were deemed infallible signs of a 
witch. She was bound crosswise, the right 
thumb tied to the left toe, and the left thumb 
to the right toe ; in this condition she was 
cast into the water, if guilty she could not 
sink, for having in her compact with the devil 
renounced the water of baptism, the water in 
return refuses to receive her. If she was 
found able to swim in that condition, she was 
taken out and burnt or hung ; but it is proba- 
ble the bystanders were allowed to save them 
from drowning or few could escape. The 
trial by the stool was resorted to as another 
^expedient; the suspected woman was placed 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY, 81 

in the middle of the room on a stool cross- 
legged ; if she refused, she was bound with 
cords, and in this uneasy posture she was kept 
without meat or sleep, for twentyfour hours, 
during which it was supposed that her imps 
Would return to her for nourishment. A 
small hole was left in the door for the imps to 
enter, and persons were directed to be con- 
stantly sweeping the floor, and to keep a strict 
watch for spiders, flies, or other insects, and if 
they could not kill them, they certainly were 
the witch's imps. Suspected witches were 
sometimes put to cruel torture to force con- 
fession, and were afterwards executed. From 
such kinds of proof, together with the most 
absurd and foolish evidence of old women and 
children, thousands of innocent persons were 
condemned for witchcraft, and burnt at the 
stake. 

Bishop Jewel, in a sermon preached before 
Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, tells her, i It may 
please your Grace to understand that witches 
and sorcerers, within these last four years, are 
marvellously increased within your Grace's 
realm. Your subjects pine away even unto 
death ; their color fadeth, their speech is be- 
6$ 



82 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 



I 



numbed, their senses are bereft ; I pray_(iod 
they never practise farther than upon the sub- 
ject. ' John Bell, minister of the gospel at 
Glaidsmuir, says, ' Providentially two test3 
appeared to discover the crime. If the witch 
cries out, (C Lord have mercy upon me !" when 
apprehended, and the inability of shedding 
tears ; because, as a witch could only shed 
three tears, and those with her left eye, her 
stock was quickly exhausted ; and that was the 
more striking, as King James L shrewdly ob 
serves, " since other women in general are 
like the crocodile, ready to weep upon every 
slight occasion." ' 

King James the First, indulged a ferocious . 
antipathy against sorcery and witchcraft, and 
in the first year of his reign, a new statute was 
passed, embracing every possible mode and 
form in which imagination could paint the 
mystical crime. James fully considered his 
own personal safety greatly endangered, as 
attempts had been made to poison him by some 
who practised the magic art. He composed 
a book on demonology, in which he advised 
the water ordeal, by swimming, and when a 
work was published in opposition to his opinion 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 83 

and desire, he ordered it to be burnt by the 
common executioner. 

That illustrious English lawyer, Sir William 
Blackstone, having, in his commentaries on 
the laws of England, stated the evidence on 
both sides of the question, concerning the 
reality of witchcraft, says, ' It seems to be 
the most eligible way to conclude that, in gen- 
eral, there has been such a thing as witchcraft, 
though one cannot give credit to any particular 
modern instance of it.' According to our 
conceptions of human actions, they are in 
general prompted and governed by reason, and 
perhaps most frequently the dominant motives 
are those which pertain to our own individual 
interest. Now it may be inquired in what 
imaginable circumstances the interest of hu- 
man beings can be linked with the affairs of 
Satan, or their welfare promoted by his influ- 
ence ? No one will pretend, that there can 
be honor attached to a seat in his privy council, 
for it is well known that a witch is considered 
one of the most odious and despicable wretches 
in existence. Nor will it be contended that 
pecuniary advantages are derivable from that 
source ; wizards and witches are always poor 3 



84 WITCHCRAFT AND 10RCERY. 

miserable, forlorn beings. They are supposed 
to give themselves up to serve under the ban- 
ners of a cruel, tyrannical master, the implac- 
able enemy and tempter of mankind, whose 
very name excites horror and detestation in 
every virtuous mind. It must, however, be 
confessed that a strong bias to scepticism rela- 
tive to things we cannot understand, is no less 
a mark of weakness of intellect, than indis- 
criminate credulity. But I am aware, that the 
real existence of the fraternity has received 
the credence of some of the wisest and best 
of men. Divine providence has permitted the 
delusion respecting this great scourge to pre- 
vail in the minds of some, as he did the sin of 
idolatry among his chosen people while in 
their pilgrimage to the land of promise. 

Numerous instances of imposition and 
counterfeit have been detected in times of 
alarm from supposed witchcraft. There are 
in all countries those who cannot exist but in 
times of confusion and civil commotion. They 
delight to be noticed as objects of great won- 
der and curiosity, and when they cannot be dis- 
tinguished for virtuous actions, resort to deeds 
of the most infernal character, according to 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 85 

their own interest, passion, or capricious humor, 
They learn to counterfeit various kinds of fits ; 
bark and snarl like a dog, goggle their eyes, 
foam at the mouth, distort their bodies, and 
disjoint their limbs. Such impostors have 
their confederates or partners who join with 
them, and share in the profit, or in the humor. 
Dr Francis Hutchinson, published a chro- 
nological detail of trials and executions for 
supposed witchcraft, sorcerers, and conjurors, 
in various countries in Europe. From this it 
will be seen, he observes, that, in all ages of 
the world, superstitious credulity has produced 
greater cruelties than are practised among 
Hottentots, or other nations whose belief in a 
Deity is called in question. The number of 
witches and their supposed dealings with Satan, 
he observes, will increase or decrease accord- 
ing as such doings are accounted probable, or 
impossible. Under the former supposition, 
charges and convictions will be found aug- 
mented in a terrific degree. When the accu- 
sations are disbelieved and dismissed as not 
worthy of attention, the crime becomes unfre- 
quent, ceases to occupy the public mind, and 
affords little trouble to the judges. That 



86 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

where the times have not been so violent and 
superstitious but that sensible men might ven 
ture to speak freely, and the accused could 
have a fair trial, they have usually discovered 
cheat and imposture. Fifteen famous detec- 
tions of fraud were made, many of them after 
judges and juries, and a multitude of eye 
witnesses had been deceived. Kad the rest 
undergone as strict inquiry, most of them 
would probably have proved innocent. 

In the year 1427, the famous heroine Joan 
of Arc, after her glorious military exploit at 
the siege of Orleans, being taken prisoner by 
the Earl of Bedford, was cruelly burnt as a 
witch. In 1488, a violent tempest of thunder 
and lightning in Spain, having destroyed the 
corn for some leagues around, the people ac- 
cused two old women of being the cause. 
They confessed and were burnt. Other in- 
stances, no less preposterous, are recorded 
about that period. In 1515, five hundred 
persons were executed at Geneva, in three 
months, as witches and wizards, and at an- 
other place, fortyeight were burnt in five years. 
Eighteen were condemned in England in 
1596 ; an account of their trials was published, 






WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 87 

j with the names and colors of the spirits. A 
perusal of that fantastic production must have 

\ excited wonder and amazement in any age. 
In France, in 1594, the crime of witchcraft 

i had become so common, that the jails were 
not sufficient to contain the prisoners, nor had 
they judges enough to try them. In 1595, a 
woman was hanged in England, for sending 
an evil spirit into Thomas Darling; and E. 
Hartley was executed for bewitching seven 
persons. In the trial, spectral evidence was 
made use of against him, and the experiment 
of saying the Lord's prayer, which it was be- 
lieved a witch is unable to repeat. But that 
which touched his life, was a deposition that 
he had made the magic circle for conjuration. 
In 1612, twelve women were executed at 
Lancaster. Mary Smith believed herself to be 
a witch, and died very pious. A learned and 
eminent clergyman in France, named Grandier, 
was, in 1634, put to cruel torment on suspicion 
of an evil spirit, and was adjured to clear 
himself by shedding tears if innocent. He 
was tortured till he swooned on the rack, and 
then inhumanly burnt. From 1634 to 1661, 
history records accounts of several hundreds 



88 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

executed in England, of both sexes, husband 
and wife, mother and daughter together, some 
confessing, others declaring themselves inno- 
cent. In Germany, whole counties were de- 
populated, that no witch might escape. But it 
was in Scotland that Satan was set at liberty 
to execute his vengeance. There the flood- 
gates of malice, revenge, and bloodshed, were 
thrown open, and multitudes were swept away 
by the dreadful torrent. No less, it is said in 
history, than 4000 victims were cruelly sacri- 
ficed within a short period, for the dubious 
crime which never has and never can be proved. 
Ixi 1664, two women were tried before the 
celebrated Lord Chief Justice Sir Matthew 
Hale, and were convicted. The evidence 
against the accused was so trivial, that his 
Lordship was greatly embarrassed on the occa- 
sion, and his scruples were such, that he de- 
clined the duty of summing up the evidence. 
Being willing, however, that the law should 
have its course, he pronounced sentence, and 
they were executed. The evidence against 
them was, partly spells and partly spectral, and 
one evidence was that a cart run against the 
cottage of one of the women, by which she 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 89 

was offended, and shortly after the same cart 
stuck fast in a gate where its wheels touched 
neither of the posts, and yet was moved easily 
forward on one of the posts being cut down. 
A girl, supposed to be bewitched, went into a 
fit on being touched by one of the accused. 
But much weight was given to the evidence of 
Sir Thomas Browne, ' that the fits were nat- 
ural, but heightened by the power of the devil, 
cooperating with the malice of witches. ' (Sir 
Walter Scott, page 225.) About this period, 
seventy persons were condemned in Sweden, 
and most of them executed. Fifteen children 
were also executed, thirtysix ran the gauntlet, 
and twenty were whipped for the same reputed 
crime. In 1678, six were executed in Scot- 
land for bewitching Sir George Maxwell. 
The principal evidence in these cases was a 
deaf and dumb girl, who made signs that there 
was a picture of wax in one of their houses as 
an instrument of enchantment, but it was 
proved afterwards that it was placed there by 
herself, and she was whipped through the 
streets of the city and banished. In 1682, 
three women were hung at Exeter, confessing 
themselves witches, but died with pious prayers 



90 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY, 

in their mouths. These were the last executed 
in England for the crime of witchcraft. Some 
of the accused persons were in their indict- 
ments charged with keeping imps, one was 
said to be like a pole-cat. On one trial several 
witnesses deposed that the grandmother and 
aunt of the prisoner were hanged for witches, 
and that her grandmother had said that she 
had eight or nine imps, and that she had given 
two or three to each of her children. In 
1697, about twenty eight were accused in 
Scotland, by a girl eleven years old. Two 
boys and a girl, and two other persons, saved 
themselves by confessing, and upon their tes- 
timony seven were executed, all denying their 
guilt. 

A notorious witch-finder, says Dr Increase 
Mather, undertook by a pin to make an infalli- 
ble discovery of suspected persons. If, when 
the pin was pushed an inch or two into the 
flesh, no blood appeared, nor any sense of pain, 
then he declared them to be witches. No 
less than three hundred persons, says that re- 
spectable author, were thus condemned in that 
kingdom. This miscreant was Matthew 
Hopkins, who styled himself witch-finder 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 91 

general, and travelled from town to town with 
a train of assistants, for the professed purpose 
of detecting witches, charging twenty shillings 
for each town. He affected to have uncommon 
skill in his profession, but treated his subjects 
with great cruelty, keeping them from sleep, 
wearying them to distress by constant walking 
to force confession. He also adopted the mode 
of swimming them while cross-bound. But 
the cruel wretch finally met his just deserts; 
he was treated as he had treated hundreds of 
others, being thrown into the water cross- 
bound ; but, although able to swim as a witch, 
he was suffered to escape from the country. 
It is greatly to be lamented, that a considera- 
ble number of Calvinistic divines should take 
zealous concern in the prosecution of reputed 
witches. Among those pious divines, we find 
the venerable names of Baxter and Calainy, 
in England, and the two Mathers in America. 
That they were conscientious, and influenced 
by the purest motives, no one will doubt ; but 
that they were imbued with a large share of 
the credulity of the times, will appear most 
evident. The following are Mr Baxter's own 
words as quoted by Sir Walter Soott. ' The 
7 



92 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

hanging of a great number of witches in 1645 4 
and 1646, is famously known. Mr Calamy 
went along with the judges on the circuit, to 
hear their confessions, and see there was no 
fraud or wrong done them. I spoke with 
many understanding, pious, learned, and cred- 
ible persons, that lived in the counties, and 
some that went to them in the prisons, and 
heard their sad confessions. Among the rest 
an old reading parson, named Lewis, was one 
that was hanged, who confessed that he had 
two imps, and that one of them was always 
putting him upon doing mischief; and he being 
near the sea, as he saw a ship under sail, it 
moved him to send it to sink the. ship ; and he 
consented, and saw the ship sink before them.' 
The Rev. Mr Lewis was condemned on his 
own simple confession, that he sent his imp to 
sink a ship, but it was not known that any 
ship was lost, and it was supposed that the 
man was deranged in his intellect. Mr Baxter 
relates another story of a mother, who gave 
her child an imp like a mole, and told her to 
keep it in a can near the fire, and she would 
never be in want. 

The Catholic priests were remarkable for 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 93 

5 their zealous pretensions to peculiar powers in 
p dispossessing demons, by fasting and prayer, 
) and they were detected in numerous frauds, 
i It was probably from their reports that the 
story originated which Dr Mather cites in his 
cases of conscience, that at the time when 
Martin Luther died, all the possessed people 
in the Netherlands became quiet and at ease. 
The devils in them said the reason was, that 
Luther had been a great friend of theirs, and 
they owed him so much respect as to go as far 
as Germany to attend his funeral, and on the 
mention of some ministers of the reformed 
religion, the devils in the possessed laughed 
and said, that they and the Calvinists were 
very good friends. There were among the 
Protestants some clergymen base enough to 
become rivals with papists in their pretended 
exorcisms. The following is an instance of 
unprecedented turpitude. In 16S9, Richard 
Dugdale, of Lancaster, was reported by a 
clergyman as having been dispossessed of 
devils, by fasting and prayer. He had for 
several months exhibited, at interVals, apparent 
sufferings, both surprising and unaccountable. 
He would counterfeit the demoniac, epileptic, 



94 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY, 

and a train of nervous fits, and unnatural af- 
flictions, which were attributed to demons. 
His singular condition excited the curiosity 
and wonder which he and his vile minister 
desired, and his supposed sufferings called 
forth the sympathy, and his indigent circum- 
stances the charity of his numerous deluded 
visitors. By these means he was encouraged to 
persevere in his deception, living at ease on 
the delusion which he and his minister had 
artfully created about a year. When at length 
complaint, was made to the Bishop of London, 
who brought Dugdale to confess that he had 
acted the part of an impostor, and that he 
had, from time to time, received private lessons 
of instruction from the clergyman, to carry on 
the imposition, that he might have the credit 
of dispossessing the devil, by his fastings and 
prayers. 

In the trials for witchcraft, says Dr Hutch- 
inson, an unpardonable partiality was mani- 
fested, owing to the vulgar prejudices among 
the people. The English statute against 
witchcraft and sorcery interdicts all acts of 
sorcery whatever, and all charms for employ- 
ing spirits ; yet, for discovering a reputed 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 95 

witch, the accusers were allowed to use charms 
which must have their force, if any at all, from 
the same diabolical power. This is unprece- 
dented partiality, and directly contrary to the 
statute. Whether such compacts are real or 
imaginary, they ought to be punished equally 
on both sides. The number of witches, and 
the supposed dealings of spirits, have been 
found to increase and decrease according to 
the laws and principles subsisting at the time 
and place. Since philosophy and learning 
have prevailed, we have had but little trouble 
about witches and sorcerers, except that creat- 
ed by the superstitious imagination of men. 
We may have as many devils in our day as 
they had in other ages, for we have as many 
murders, robberies, false accusations, and lies, 
and other crimes which are the devil's works. 
Some are of opinion that the devil cannot 
really control the laws of nature, while others 
aver, that the laws of nature are a mere jest 
with him. It has been denied that he pos- 
sesses power to transform a man or woman into 
a cat, but Dr Henry More believed he could, 
and describes the manner in which he trans- 
forms them. It is difficult to conceive how 
7# 



yb WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

Dr More acquired such knowledge ; but we 
shall never believe that Satan is the ruler of 
our world. We have no reason to imagine 
that God has endowed him with miraculous 
powers ; he cannot, therefore, impart such 
powers to others ; consequently, there can be 
no such creature as a witch. All illusive 
fancies of witchcraft may be clearly explained 
on the principles of mental philosophy and 
sound and enlightened reason. The confes- 
sions of witches have so often been extorted, 
so often the effects of distraction, and so often 
been found contrary to plain truth and sober 
reason, that no dependence should be placed 
on them. Dr Hutchinson asserts, that it may 
be plainly proved, from scripture and reason, 
that there never was a witch, such as w r e mean, 
who can send devils, diseases, and destruction, 
among the people. The spectral evidence 
made use of in courts, is far from being legal 
proof, it is of no sort of weight, nor should it 
be regarded as anything more than dreams. 
The confessions of ignorant old women, ought 
to have been entirely rejected ; some were 
extorted, many were impossible, and all ridic- 
ulous and incredible. 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 97 

The Rev. Dr Holmes, in his American 
Annals, observes, that our fathers, before the 
world was enlightened by learning and phi- 
losophy, loved to astonish themselves with the 
apprehensions of witches and prodigies, charms 
and enchantment. There was not a village in 
England, he observes, that had not a ghost in 
it ; the church-yards were all haunted, every 
large common had a circle of fairies belonging 
to it, and there was scarce a shepherd to be 
met with who had not seen a spirit. 

The dreadful contagion was at length per- 
mitted to afflict the puritans of New England, 
and our revered ancestors were involved in a 
series of tragical events, and overwhelmed 
with the most appalling apprehensions. A re- 
trospect to that sorrowful period creates painful 
impressions ; but however revolting the trans- 
actions in those days of melancholy delusion, 
w r e are not without the consoling hope, that 
our pious fathers were guided by a conscien- 
tious spirit in their proceedings and condemna- 
tions. The people of New England were 
naturally of a grave and serious cast, and re- 
markably prone to the most rigid and sacred 
construction on all the events of Providence, 
7t 



98 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY, 

and too often their sentiments were biassed by 
enthusiasm and superstition. The books con* 
taining narratives of trials of witches and sor- 
cerers in England, had been received here, 
and could not fail of making a deep impression 
on the public mind. Hence it is not strange 
that there should be a close coincidence be- 
tween the English witches and those reputed 
such in New England, and that they should 
suffer a similar fate. So violent was the pop* 
ular prejudice against every appearance of 
witchcraft, that it was deemed meritorious to 
denounce all that gave the least reason for 
suspicion. Every child and gossip were pre- 
pared to recognise a witch, and no one could 
be certain of personal safety. As the infatua- 
tion increased, many of the most reputable 
females, and several males also, were appre- 
hended and committed to prison. There is 
good reason to believe, that, in some instances, 
the vicious and abandoned, availed themselves 
of opportunities of gratifying their corrupt 
passions of envy, malice, and revenge. The 
English judge, Sir Matthew Hale, so eminently 
distinguished for his knowledge in the law, 
and his exemplary piety, was most highly 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 99 

estimated here, and knowing that he had con- 
demned some persons in England, his opinion 
had great influence with both judges and 
juries. 

In a publication in 1767, by the Rev. John 
Hale, of Beverly, it appears that the first per- 
son who suffered in New England for witch- 
craft was a woman in Charlestown ; and in the 
collection of the Massachusetts Historical So- 
ciety, (Vol. V. second series) it is recorded, 
that ' in June 1648, one Margaret Jones of 
Charlestown, was executed for a witch. She 
was proved to have such a malignant touch, 
that whomsoever she touched with any affec- 
tion of displeasure, were taken presently after 
with deafness, vomiting, or other violent sick- 
ness. Soon after she was executed, a ship 
riding over against Charlestown, of three hun- 
dred tons, having in her hold an hundred and 
twenty tons of ballast, and eighty horses 
aboard her for the Barbadoes, was on a sudden 
observed to roll as if she would have turned 
over. The husband of that witch lately exe- 
cuted had desired passage in that ship to Bar- 
badoes, which not obtaining, that accident 
was observed to follow. Notice being given 

n 



100 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY* 

of this to the magistrates, then sitting in court 
at Boston, a warrant was sent to apprehend 
him, and as the officer was passing therewith 
over the ferry, one asked if he could not tame 
the vessel, seeing he could sometimes tame 
men ; he answered, I have that here, which, it 
may be, will tame her and make her quiet, 
showing his warrant, and at the same instant, 
the ship began to stop her motion, and swim 
upright, which had continued rolling, after a 
strange manner about twelve hours, and after 
Jones was in prison she never moved in that 
kind any more.' 

Another, executed not long after, was a 
Dorchester woman ; she also positively denied 
being guilty. The next was a woman of 
Cambridge, against whom a principal evidence 
w r as a nurse, who testified that the accused 
did bewitch a child to death ; for the woman 
made much of the child, being perfectly well, 
but quickly changed its color, and it died in a 
few hours after. The woman denied her 
guilt to the last moment. In 1655, Mrs Hib- 
bens, widow of an assistant, or counsellor, 
was executed at Boston. This gave great dis- 
satisfaction to several principal persons, and it 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 101 

Was believed that her death saved the lives of 
tnany other inferior persons. About the same 
time, two or three at Springfield, and one at 
Hartford, were executed, two of whom confess- 
ed themselves guilty. The next that suffered 
Was in 1663, a woman named Greensmith, 
and her husband with her ; who confessed, 
but he denied guilt. Two other were put to 
the water ordeal, but being found to float on 
the water like cork, were permitted to fly from 
New England. This ridiculous experiment 
appears to have been soon after abandoned. 
In 1663, Mary Johnson was tried and hanged. 
She said the devil appeared to her, and cleaned 
her hearth of ashes, and hunted the hogs out 
of the corn. In 1688, a female named Glover, 
an Irish papist, was hung for bewitching four 
children of one John Goodwin, of Boston. 
This affair was attended by such extraordinary 
circumstances as to arrest a general interest 
and sympathy. "Goodwin was- a man of unex- 
ceptionable moral character, and his children 
were religiously educated, and discovered mild 
and amiable tempers. e These children/ says 
the celebrated Dr Cotton Mather, ' were ar- 
rested by a stupendous witchcraft. The 



102 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY, 

eldest, a daughter thirteen years old, was first 
seized with odd fits, in appearance diabolical 5 
it was not long before one of her sisters, and 
two brothers, were similarly afTected.' They 
were at times deaf, dumb, and blind. Their 
tongues would be drawn down their throats, 
and then pulled out upon their chins. Their 
mouths were thrown open with great violence, 
and then the jaws clapped together again with a 
force like that of a spring lock, and all their 
limbs and joints were strangely distorted. 
They made piteous outcries that they were cut 
with knives, and struck with blows. The 
ministers of Boston and Charlestown, had re- 
course to fasting and prayer, and during the 
devotions, the children it is said were deprived 
of hearing ; but the youngest child was entirely 
relieved. The poor ignorant woman, above 
mentioned, was suspected of employing de- 
mons to afflict these children ; she was arrested, 
and committed to jail in chains. On her trial 
she rather bragged than denied her guilt, but 
she would converse only in Irish, though she 
understood the English language very well. 
Her house being searched, several images and- 
puppets, or babies made of rags and stuffed 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 103 

J with goat's hair, were found, and she confessed 
| that her way to torment the objects of her 
malice, was by wetting her finger with spittle 
and stroking those little images. The afflicted 
children were present in court, and the woman 
appeared to be greatly agitated. One of the 
images being presented to her, she oddly and 
quickly snatched it into her hand, and instantly 
one of the children fell into a fit. The 
judges ordered a repetition of the experi- 
ment, with the same result. Being asked if 
she had any one to stand by her as a friend, 
she replied that she had, and looking round in 
the air, she added, no, he is gone. The night 
after, she was heard expostulating with the 
devil for his deserting her, telling him that be- 
cause he had served her so basely and falsely, 
she had confessed all. The court appointed 
several physicians to examine whether she was 
in any degree crazed in her intellect ; but 
they pronounced her sane, and the court passed 
sentence of death upon her, and she was exe- 
cuted. After the condemnation of the woman, 
Dr Mather made her many visits ; she declined 
answering his questions, or attending to his 
prayers, pretending that her spirits would not 



104 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

consent to it. At her execution she said the 
afflicted children should not be relieved by her 
death, as others were concerned in it ; accord- 
ingly the three children continued to be tor- 
mented. They frequently discerned spectres 
around them, and when a blow was aimed at 
the place where they saw the spectre, the boy 
always felt the blow in the part of his body 
answering to that stricken at, and it was very 
credibly affirmed that a dangerous woman or 
two in the town, received blows thus given to 
their spectres. At length, the children would 
bark at each other like dogs, and pur like so 
many cats. They would complain that they 
were in a hot oven, or roasting on an invisible 
spit, and that knives were cutting them. They 
would complain of blows from a great cudgel, 
and though we could see no cudgels, we could 
see the marks of the blows in red streaks upon 
their skin. They would complain that their 
heads were nailed to the floor, and it required 
more than ordinary strength to pull them from 
thence. They would be so limber sometimes, 
that it was judged every bone might be bent, 
and anon so stiff, that a joint could not be 
moved. Sometimes they would fly like geese, 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 105 

• with incredible swiftness, through the air, their 
arms waving, like the wings of birds, and the 

; feet scarcely touching the ground once in 
twenty feet. The sight of the Bible, and all 

i religious discourse, would throw them into 
distressing fits. Dr Mather took the eldest of 
these children into his own family, that he 
might have opportunity to observe the doings 
of Satan more critically ; but unhappily his 
own imagination was so continually haunted 
by ideas of wicked demons and witches, that 
he was unconscious of the imposition he was 
suffering. When he prayed, her hands with a 
strong force would be clapped upon her ears, 
and if pulled away by force she would cry out. 
She complained that she had Glover's chain 
round her leg, and would imitate her in her 
gait. An invisible chain would be clapped about 
her, and she would, in much pain and fear, 
cry out when they put it on. Sometimes we 
could with our hands knock it off as it began 
to be fastened. But when it was on she would 
be pulled out of her seat, with such violence 
that it w T as difficult to keep her out of the fire. 
I may add, says the learned, but credulous 
doctor, that the demons put an unseen rope 



106 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

with a cruel noose about her neck, by which 
she was choked till she was black in the face, 
and though it was got off before it killed her, 
yet there were the red marks of it, and of a 
finger and thumb, remaining for some time 
She once said, if she could steal or get drunk, 
she would be well. At one time an invisible 
horse was brought to her, and she would put 
herself in the posture of a riding woman. She 
would in her chair throw herself into a riding 
posture, sometimes ambling, sometimes trot- 
ting, and sometimes galloping very furiously, 
and attempting to ride up stairs. Dr Mather 
observes, that the girl having learned that he 
was about to prepare a sermon on the occasion 
of the witchcraft, became very turbulent and 
insolent, constantly endeavoring to interrupt 
his studying the sermon. In prayer time, the 
demons would throw her on the floor, where 
she would whistle and sing to drown the voice, 
and attempt to kick and strike the speaker. 
But to conclude this tedious story. At Christ- 
mas, says the doctor, this girl and her sister in 
another house, were by the demons made very 
drunk, though the people in the house were 
well satisfied that it was without strong drink. 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 107 

i They imitated, with wonderful exactness, the 
actions of one drunk in speaking, and reeling, 
and vomiting, and anon sleeping, till they re- 
covered. These children were all restored to 
their natural health, and lived to adult age. 
Governor Hutchinson, in his History of Mas- 
sachusetts, says he was acquainted with the 
eldest daughter ; she sustained an unblemished 
character ; but he believes she never made 
any confession of fraud or imposition in this 
transaction. 

Hutchinson was truly an excellent historical 
writer, whatever may have been his political 
principles and conduct as chief magistrate. 
From the history and from the collections of 
the Historical Society, I copy the following 
narrative, with the view of evincing to what 
extent artful children may impose on credulous 
persons. 

In the year 1720, there was at Littleton, in 
the county of Middlesex, a family who were 
supposed to be bewitched. One J. B. had 
three daughters, eleven, nine, and five years 
old. The eldest was a forward and capable 
girl, and having read and heard many strange 
stories, would surprise the company by her- 



108 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

manner of relating them. Pleased with the 
applause, she went from some she had heard 
to some of her own framing, and so on to 
dreams and visions, and attained the art of 
swooning, and of being, to all appearance, 
breathless. Upon her revival she would relate 
strange things she had met with in this and 
other worlds. When she met with the word 
God, and other solemn words in the Bible, she 
would drop down as if dead. Strange and 
unaccountable noises were often heard in, and 
upon the house, stones came down the chim- 
ney and did considerable mischief. She com- 
plained of the spectre of Mrs D— y, a woman 
in the town, and once she desired her mother 
to strike at a place where she said there was a 
yellow bird, and she said to her mother, you 
have hit the side of its head, and it appeared 
that Mrs D — y's head was hurt about the same 
time. Another time the mother struck at the 
place where the spectre was, and the girl said, 
you have struck her on the bowels, and on in- 
quiry it was found, that Mrs D — y complained 
of a hurt on her bowels about the same time. 
It was common to find her in ponds of water, 
crying out she should be drowned ; sometimes 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 109 

upon the top of the house, and again upon 
the tops of trees, pretending she had flown 
there, and some fancied they had seen her in 
I the air. There were often the marks of blows 
and pinches upon her, which were supposed 
to come from an invisible hand. The second 
daughter, after her sister had practised the art 
for some months, and had succeeded so well, 
imitated her in complaints of Mrs D — y, and 
outdid her in feats of climbing the barn and 
trees, ascending where she could not descend 
without assistance with a ladder. What was 
most surprising, the youngest, of five years old 
only, attempted the same feats and in some in- 
stances w 7 ent beyond her sisters. The neigh- 
bors agreed they were under an evil hand, 
and it was pronounced witchcraft, as certain 
as there ever had been at Salem. Physicians 
had been at first employed, but to no purpose, 
and afterwards ministers and elders were call- 
ed to pray over them, but without success. 
The children had numerous visitors, and the 
more they were pitied, the more loud and 
constant were their moans and distractions ; 
few spectators suspected that they were acting 
the part of perverse and wicked impostors. 
8 



110 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

The afflicted parents treated them with all 
possible care and tenderness, believing that 
they were objects of pity and compassion. At 
length Mrs D — y, not long after the supposed 
blows from the mother, sickened and died, 
and the two oldest girls ceased complaining ; 
the youngest held out longer, but all persisted 
in it that there had been no fraud. But their 
consciences, that inward monitor, finally se- 
verely lashed and tortured them. The eldest, 
for some years, wore a gloominess upon her 
mind, and when questioned by her parents and 
others on the subject, she would artfully turn 
the discourse. Not having been baptized, she 
applied to a minister for baptism, who examin- 
ed her closely relative to the affair, telling her 
she was suspected of falsehood and fraud ; 
but this she denied and asserted her innocence. 
In 1728, having removed to Medford, she ap- 
plied to Rev. Mr Turell, to be admitted into 
his church. She gave him a very good account 
of the state of her soul, and discoursed sensi- 
bly and religiously respecting her past temper 
and conversation in life. Mr Turell knew 
nothing of her having been an actor in the 
fraud above detailed, and propounded her for 



WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. Ill 

full communion. The next Sabbath, without 
any reference to her, he happened to preach 
from this text, ' He that teileth lies shall not 
escape.' The day before she was to be ad- 
mitted into the church she visited Mr Turell 
in great distress and anguish of mind, inquir- 
ing of him what dreadful things he had heard 
about her, that made him preach so awfully 
against the practice of lying and liars. Mr 
Turell being much surprised, replied that no 
one had made any complaint against her and 
that he had no particular reference to her. 
With great grief she frankly confessed that 
she had been a great sinner, but was now 
awakened and convinced by the word preach- 
ed, and that she was resolved no longer to 
conceal the truth, but confess it before God 
and man. She then proceeded to acknowledge 
herself guilty of the wicked deception which 
she had practised, bewailing and weeping bit- 
terly for her egregious folly and wicked con- 
duct. She then desired Mr Turell to draw 
up a suitable confession to be read before the 
congregation, and she would publicly own and 
acknowledge the same ; which was accordingly 
done, and she was admitted to full communion, 



112 WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY. 

and ever after conducted in a manner becom- 
ing the christian profession. She acknow- 
ledged to Mr Turell as follows : that the motives 
which excited her and her sisters to act the 
part of impostors, were from folly and pride. 
Finding that she pleased others or caused ad- 
miration, she was over pleased with, and ad- 
mired herself, grew conceited and high mind- 
ed. She thought to be able to deceive her 
parents and neighbors, was a fine accomplish- 
ment. She never dreamed of witchcraft in her 
case. The wounds, pinches, and bruises on 
their bodies, were from their own hands, and 
the noises and stones falling down the chim- 
ney, were the effects of their contrivance. 
She was often sorry she ever began the de- 
ception, but could not humble herself to desist, 
and was obliged to tell one lie to hide another. 
Her two sisters, she said, seeing her pitied 
had become actors also, with her, without be- 
ing moved to it by her ; but when she saw them 
follow her, they all joined in the secret and 
acted in concert, and thus during eight months 
their parents were kept in constant painful 
anxiety, and they were considered as objects 
of pity and compassion. They had no 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 113 

particular spite against Mrs D — y, but it was 
necessary to accuse some person, and the eld- 
est having pitched upon her, the others follow- 
| ed. The woman's complaints about the same 
time the girl pretended she was struck, pro- 
ceeded from other causes which were not then 
properly inquired into. Once, at least, they 
were in great danger of being detected in 
their tricks ; but the grounds of suspicion were 
overlooked through the indulgence and credu- 
lity of their parents. 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

I shall now detail an impartial history of 
the memorable trials and executions for sup- 
posed witchcraft at Salem, in 1692. A con- 
troversy respecting the settlement of a minister 
had subsisted in Salem for some time prior to 
this melancholy catastrophe. They had also 
recently been deprived by death of several of 
their most distinguished and influential char- 
acters, who had been considered as the fathers 
and governors of the town for half a century. 
8* 



114 SALEM WITCHCRAFT, 

Unfortunately, two or three ministers in the 
town, and several in the vicinity, were, with a c: 
large proportion of the inhabitants, bigoted W; 
and superstitious believers in the doctrine oiLj 
witchcraft, and they aggravated the general g 
prejudice and fanaticism. From preconceived ( 



opinions and strong prejudices, it was scarcely 
possible that the trials should be impartially 
conducted. It seemed not to be recollected, 
that in the trials of witches no other evidence 
should be received than in the trials of mur- 
derers and other criminals ; and that no con- 
victions should be made, but through the most 
substantial human testimony, rejecting all dia- 
bolical or witch evidence, which can, on no 
principle, be deemed legal in any case. In 
the language of the late Dr Bentley, in his 
History of Salem, 'The spark fell upon in- 
flammable matter, and behold, how great a 
matter a little fire kindled!.' But it would be 
unjust not to make due allowance for the times 
in which they lived, and the melancholy delu- 
sions which prevailed from the war of preju- 
dice, and the slavish effects of the most imbe- 
cile apprehensions. These errors, like those 
of a thousand years ago, are equally opposed 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 115 

to the progress of knowledge, and to a pious 
confidence in the wisdom and goodness of an 
Almighty Providence. The authorities from 
I which the following history is derived, are, 
Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Dr 
Cotton Mather's Magnalia, Wonders of the 
Invisible World, by the same author, Historical 
Collections, and More Wonders of the Invisi- 
ble W'orld, by R. Calef, of Boston, published 
in 1700. 

In a letter of Thomas Brattle, F. R. S., 
dated October 8, 1692, published in the Col- 
lections of the Massachusetts Historical Soci- 
ety, we have the following account. 

( As to the method which the Salem justices 
do take in their examinations, it is truly this ; 
a warrant being issued out to apprehend the 
persons that are charged and complained of by 
the afflicted children as they are called, said 
persons are brought before the justices, the 
afflicted being present. The justices ask the 
apprehended why they afflict those poor child- 
ren, to which the apprehended answer, they 
do not afflict them. The justices order the 
apprehended to look upon the said children, 
which, accordingly, they do ; and at the time 
St 



116 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

of that look (I dare not say by that look, as 
the Salem gentlemen do) the afflicted are cast 
into a fit. The apprehended are then blinded 
and ordered to touch the afflicted ; and at that 
touch, though not by that touch (as above) the 
afflicted do ordinarily come out of their fits. 
The afflicted persons then declare and affirm, 
that the apprehended have afflicted them ; 
upon which the apprehended persons, though 
of never so good repute, are forthwith com- 
mitted to prison on suspicion for witchcraft.' — 
'Such was the excess of their stupidity, that 
to the most dubious crime in the world, they 
joined the most uncertain proofs.' — ' A person ■ 
ought to have been a magician to be able to 
clear himself from the imputation of magic. ' 
The first instance of reputed witchcraft in 
the town of Salem, took place in the family of 
Mr Parris, minister of Salem, and very soon 
after, one or two in the neighborhood were 
afflicted in a similar manner, and a day of 
prayer was kept on the occasion. The per- 
sons who complained of being afflicted, were 
a daughter and a niece of Mr Parris, girls of 
ten or eleven years of age ; and these were 
300H followed by two other girls. They made 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 117 

similar complaints, and exhibited antic ges- 
tures and tricks, similar to those of Goodwin's 
children, two or three years before. The 
physician, unable to account for the complaint, 
pronounced them bewitched. They named 
several women whose spectres they saw in their 
fits, tormenting them, and in particular Tituba, 
an Indian woman belonging to Mr Parris's 
family. She had been trying some experiments, 
which she pretended to be used in her own 
country, in order to find out the witch ; upon 
this, the children cried out against the poor 
Indian, as appearing to them, pinching, prick- 
ing, and tormenting them, and they fell into 
fits. Tituba acknowledged that she had 
learned how to find out a witch, but denied 
that she was one herself. Several private 
fasts were kept at the minister's house, and 
several more public by the whole village, and 
then a general fast through the colony. This 
probably had a tendency to bring the afflicted 
into notice ; w T hich, with the pity and compas- 
sion of those who visited them, encouraged 
and confirmed them in their designs, and in- 
creased their numbers. Tituba, as she said, 
being beat and threatened by her master to 
8| 



118 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

make her confess, and to accuse her sister 
witches, as he termed them, did confess that 
the devil urged her to sign a book, which he 
presented, and also to work mischief with the 
children, and she was sent to jail. The child- 
ren complained, likewise, of Sarah Good, 
who had long been counted a melancholy or 
distracted woman, and also Sarah Osborn, an 
old bedridden woman, both of whom being 
examined by two Salem magistrates, were 
committed to jail for trial. About three weeks 
after, two other women of good character, and 
church members, Corey and Nurse, were 
complained of and brought to their examina- 
tion, when these children fell into fits, and the 
mother of one of them joined with the child- 
ren and complained of Nurse as tormenting 
her, and made most terrible shrieks, to the 
amazement of all the neighborhood. The old 
women denied everything charged against 
them, but were sent to prison ; and such was 
the infatuation, that a child of Sarah Good, 
about four or five years old, was committed 
also, charged with being a witch and of biting 
some of the afflicted, who showed the print of 
small teeth on their arms; and all that the 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 119 

child looked upon, it is said, fell down in fits, 
complaining that they were in torment. Eliz- 
abeth Proctor, being accused and brought to 
examination, her husband, as every kind hus- 
band would have done, accompanied her to 
her examination ; but it cost the poor man his 
life. Some of the afflicted cried out against 
him, also, and they both were committed to 
prison. Instead, says Governor Hutchinson, 
of suspecting and sifting the witnesses, and 
suffering them to be cross-examined, the au- 
thorities, to say no more, were imprudent in 
making use of leading questions, and thereby 
putting words into their mouths, or suffering 
others to do it. Mr Parris was over-officious - 

3 

most of the examinations, although in the 
presence of one or more of the magistrates, 
were taken by him. They allowed of such 
as the following trivial replies to their examin- 
ing questions. John the Indian. ' She hurt 
me, she choked me, and brought the book a 
great many times. She took hold of my throat, 
to stop my breath. She pinched and bit me 
till the blood came. I saw the witches eat 
and drink at such a place, and they said it was 
their sacrament ; they said it was our bl oo d, 



120 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

and they had it twice that day.' Upon such 
kind of evidence, persons of blameless char- 
acter were committed to prison ; and, such 
was the dreadful infatuation, that the life of 
no person was secure. The most effectual 
way to prevent an accusation was to become 
the accuser ; and accordingly the number of 
the afflicted increased every day, and the num- 
ber of the accused in proportion ; who, in 
general perished in their innocence. More 
than a hundred women, many of them of fair 
characters and of the most reputable families, 
in the towns of Salem, Beverly, Andover, 
Billerica, &c, were apprehended, examined, 
and generally committed to prison. Goodwife* 
Corey, as she was called, was examined before 
the magistrates, in the meetinghouse in the 
village ; the novelty of the case produced a 
throng of spectators. Mr Noyes, one of the 
ministers of Salem, began by prayer. Several 
children and women were present, that pre- 
tended to be bewitched by her, and the most 
of them accused her of biting, pinching, and 
strangling, and said that they did, in their fits, 

* Good wife, Goody, and Goodman, were vulgar 
terms applied to heads of families by the lower class. 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 121 

see her likeness coming to them, and bringing 
a book for them to sign. She was accused by 
them, that the black man, meaning the devil, 
whispered to her now while she was on her 
examination. The unfortunate woman could 
only deny all that was laid to her charge, and 
she was committed to jail. A miserable negro 
slave was accused by some of the girls, but on 
examination she extricated herself by her na- 
tive cunning. Question to Candy. ' Are you 
a witch V Answer. l Candy no witch in her 
country. Candy's mother no witch. Candy 
no witch, Barbadoes. This country, mistress 
give Candy witch.' ' Did your mistress make 
you a witch in this country V ' Yes, in this 
country mistress give Candy witch.' ' What 
did your mistress do to make you a witch V 
' Mistress bring book, and pen, and ink, make 
Candy write in it.' From this testimony, Mrs 
Haskins, the mistress, had no other way to 
save her life but to make confession. 

In April, 1692, there was a public hearing 
and examination before six magistrates and 
several ministers. The afflicted complained 
against many with hideous clamors and 
screechings. On their examinations, besides 



122 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

the experiment of the afflicted falling down at 
the sight of the accused, they were required 
to repeat the Lord's Prayer, which it was sup- 
posed a real witch could not do. When Sir 
William Phipps entered upon the office of 
Governor, in May, 1692, he ordered the witches 
to be put in chains ; upon that it was said the 
afflicted persons were free from their torments. 
In May, Mrs Carey, of Charlestown, was ex- 
amined and committed. Her husband pub- 
lished the following facts. 

' Having for some days heard that my wife 
was accused of witchcraft, and being much 
disturbed at it, we went to Salem by advice to 
see if the afflicted knew her. The prisoners 
were called in before the justices, singly, and 
as they entered were cried out against by the 
afflicted girls. The prisoners were placed 
about seven or eight feet from the justices, and 
the accusers between the justices and the 
prisoners. The prisoners were ordered to 
stand directly before the justices with an offi- 
cer appointed to hold each hand lest they 
should therewith afflict the girls ; and the 
prisoners' eyes must be constantly fixed on the 
justices ; for if they looked on the afflicted, 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 123 

they would either fall into these fits, or cry 
out of being hurt by them ; after examination 
of the prisoners, who it was that afflicted these 
girls, &c, they put them upon saying the Lord's 
Prayer as a trial of their guilt. When the 
afflicted seemed to be out of their fits, they 
would look stedfastly on some one person, and 
not speak, and then the justices said they were 
struck dumb, and after a little time they would 
speak again ; then the justices said to the ac- 
cusers, which of you will go and touch the 
prisoner at the bar ? Then the most courage- 
ous would venture, but before they made three 
steps would fall on the floor as if in a fit. The 
justices then ordered that they should be taken 
up and carried to the prisoner, that she might 
touch them, and as soon as this was done the 
justices would say they are all well, before I 
could discern any alteration, but the justices 
seemed to understand the manner of the strange 
juggle. Two of the accusers who pretended 
to be bewitched, were Abigail Williams, niece 
of Mr Parris, aged eleven or twelve years, and 
Indian John, the husband of Tituba, who was 
now in jail. This fellow had himself been ac- 
cused of witchcraft, but had now become an 



124 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

accuser for his own safety. He showed sev- 
eral old scars which he said were the effects of 
witchcraft, but more likely of the lash. On 
inquiry who they would accuse as the cause of 
their sufferings, they cried out Carey, and im- 
mediately a warrant was sent by the justices 
to bring my wife before them. Her chief ac- 
cusers were two girls ; my wife declared to the 
justices that she never had any knowledge of 
them before that day. She was obliged to 
stand with her arms extended. I requested 
that I might hold one of her hands, but it was 
denied me. She then desired that I would 
wipe the tears and the sweat from her face 
and that she might lean herself on me as she 
was faint ; but justice Hathorn said she had 
strength enough to torment those persons, and 
she should have strength enough to stand. I 
remonstrated against such cruel treatment, 
but was commanded to be silent, or I should 
be turned out of the room. Indian John was 
now called in to be one of the accusers ; he 
fell down and tumbled about like a brute, but 
said nothing. The justices asked the girls 
who afflicted the Indian ; they answered she, 
(meaning my wife) ; the justices ordered her 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 125 

to touch him in order to his cure ; but her 
head must be turned another way, lest instead 
of curing, she should make him worse by look- 
ing on him ; her hand was guided to take 
hold of his, but the Indian seized hold of her 
hand, and pulled her down on the floor, in a 
violent manner ; then his hand was taken off, 
and her hand put on his, and the cure was 
quickly wrought. My wife, after being thus 
cruelly treated, was put into prison, and the 
jailor was ordered to put irons on her legs 
which weighed about eight pounds. These 
chains, with her other afflictions, soon produc- 
ed convulsion fits, so that I was apprehensive 
she would have died that night. I intreated 
that the irons might be removed, but in vain. 
I now attended the trials at Salem, and finding 
that spectre evidence, together with idle or 
malicious stories, was received against the 
lives of innocent people, I trembled for the 
fate of my wife ; as the same evidence that 
would serve for one would serve for all. In 
this awful situation, I thought myself justifiable 
in devising some means of escape; and this, 
through the goodness of God, was effected. 
We were pursued as far as Rhode Island, but 



126 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

we reached New York in safety, where we 
were kindly received by Governor Fletcher. 
To speak of the treatment of the prisoners 
and the inhumanity shown them at their exe- 
cutions, is more than any sober Christian can 
endure. Those that suffered, being many of 
them church members, and most of them of 
blameless conversation. — Jonathan Carey/ 
Captain John Alden, of Boston, manner, 
was sent for by the magistrates of Salem, upon 
the accusation of several poor, distracted, or 
possessed creatures, or witches. On his ex- 
amination, these wretches began their juggling 
tricks, falling down, crying out, and staring in 
the faces of people ; the magistrates demanded 
of them several times who it was of all the 
people in the room, that hurt them ; one of the 
accusers pointed several times to one Captain 
Hill, but said nothing, till a man standing be- 
hind her to hold her up, stooped down to her 
ear, when she immediately cried out, Alden, 
Alden afflicted her. Being asked if she had 
ever seen Alden, she answered no, but she 
said the man told her so. Alden was then 
committed to custody, and his sword taken 
from him, for they said he afflicted them with 



S.ALEM WITCHCRAFT. 127 

his sword. He was next sent for to the meet- 
ing-house, by the magistrates, and was ordered 
to stand on a chair to the open view of all the 
assembly. The accusers cried out that Alden 
pinched them when he stood on the chair ; 
and one of the magistrates bid the marshal 
hold open his hands, that he might not pinch 
those creatures. Mr Gidney, one of the jus- 
tices, bid Captain Alden confess, and give 
glory to God. He replied, he hoped he should 
always give glory to God, but never would 
gratify the devil. He asked them why they 
should think that he should come to that vil- 
lage to afflict persons that he had never seen 
before ; and appealed to all present and chal- 
lenged any one to produce a charge against 
his character. Mr Gidney said he had known 
him many years, and had been to sea with 
him, and always believed him to be an honest 
man ; but now he saw cause to alter his opin- 
ion. Alden asked Gidney what reason could 
be given why his looking upon him did not 
strike him down as well as the miserable ac- 
cusers ; but no reason could be given. He 
assured Gidney that a lying spirit was in his 
accusers, and that there was not a word of 
9 



128 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

truth in all they said of him. Alden, however, 
was committed to jail where he continued fif- 
teen weeks, when he made his escape. At 
the examinations, and at other times, it was 
usual for the accusers to tell of the black man, 
or of a spectre, as being then on the table ; 
the people present would strike with swords or 
sticks at those places. One justice broke his 
cane at this exercise ; and sometimes the ac- 
cusers would say they struck the spectre ; and 
it was even reported that several of the accus- 
ed women were hurt and wounded thereby, 
though at home at the same tirrie. 

In June and July, the court of Oyer and 
Terminer proceeded on trials and condemna- 
tions, and six miserable creatures were execu- 
ted, protesting their innocence. 

At the trial of Sarah Good, one of the 
afflicted girls fell into a fit, and after coming 
out of it, she cried out against the prisoner 
for stabbing her in the breast while in court, 
and actually produced a piece of the blade ot 
the knife which she said was used and broken 
in doing it. Upon this, a young man was 
called to prove the imposition. He produced 
a haft and part of the blade, which the court, 



- 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 129 



having viewed and compared, found to be the 
same ; and the young man affirmed, that 
yesterday he happened to break that knife, 
and that he cast away the upper part in the 
presence of the person who now produced it. 
The girl was cautioned by the court not to tell 
any more lies, but was still employed to give 
evidence against the prisoners whose lives 
were in her hands. 

Mr Noyes, the minister, urged Sarah Good 
to confess, saying he knew she was a witch, 
and she knew she was a witch ; to which she 
replied, ' You are a liar. I am no more a 
witch than you are a wizard/ At the trial of 
Rebecca Nurse it was remarkable that the 
jury brought her in not guilty ; immediately 
all the accusers in the court, and soon after 
all the afflicted out of court, made a hideous 
outcry, to the amazement of the court and 
spectators. The court having expressed some 
dissatisfaction, the jury were induced to go 
out again to consider better one expression of 
hers when before the court. They now 
brought her in guilty, and she was condemned. 
After her condemnation, she was by Mr Noyes 
of Salem, excommunicated and given to the 



130 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

devil. The governor, however, saw cause to 
grant a reprieve, upon which, when known, 
the accusers renewed their dismal outcries 
against her, insomuch that the governor was 
by some Salem gentlemen prevailed with to 
recall the reprieve, and she was executed with 
the rest. The testimonials of her christian 
behaviour, both in the course of her life, and at 
her death, are numerous and highly satisfacto- 
ry. Mary Easty, her sister, was also condemn- 
ed. She was of a serious and religious char- 
acter, and before her execution she presented 
a petition to the court and the reverend min- 
isters at Salem, protesting her innocence be- 
fore God. She petitioned, not for her own 
life, for she knew she must die ; but most 
earnestly prayed, that if possible, no more in- 
nocent blood might be shed. By her own in- 
nocence she said she knew the court was in 
the wrong way, and humbly begged that their 
honors would examine the confessing witches, 
being confident that many of them had belied 
themselves and others. They had accused 
her and others, she said, of having made a 
league with the devil, which she and they most 
positively denied. ' The Lord alone, who is 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 131 

the searcher of all hearts, knows that as I shall 
answer it at the tribunal seat, that I know no- 
thing of witchcraft, therefore I cannot, 1 dare 
not, belie my own soul by confessing.' She 
intreats their honors not to deny the humble 
petition of a poor, dying, innocent person, and 
prays that the Lord will give a blessing to 
their endeavors that no more innocent blood 
be shed. These two women were among the 
eight who were executed together, when the 
Rev. Mr Noyes, turning towards the bodies, 
said, what a sad thing it is to see eight fire- 
brands of hell hanging there ! ! 

John Proctor, while confined in prison, 
complained that two young men were com- 
pelled to a confession by being tied neck and 
heels till the blood was ready to burst out of 
their noses. They then confessed that one 
had been a wizard a month, and the other five 
weeks, and that their mother had made them 
so when she had been confined in jail without 
seeing them for nine weeks. He adds, ' My 
son, William Proctor, when he was examined, 
because he would not confess that he was 
guilty, they tied him up neck and heels till 
the blood gushed out of his nose. 
9* 



132 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

At a court held in Salem, April, 1692, by 
the honorable Thomas Danforth, deputy gov- 
ernor, Elizabeth Proctor was tried for witch- 
craft. The witnesses were Indian John, hus- 
band to Tituba, and three or four girls who 
pretended to be afflicted by the said Proctor. 
The questions by the court, and the answers 
of the witnesses, were exceedingly futile and 
whimsical ; but they exhibited their antic ges- 
tures and fits, which they pretended were 
caused by the presence of the prisoner at the 
bar. The court then put the question thus — 
' Elizabeth Proctor, you understand whereof 
you are charged, viz. to be guilty of sundry 
acts of witchcraft : what say you to it ? ' 
* Speak the truth as you will answer it before 
God another day. What do you say, Goody 
Proctor, to these things ? ' 'I take God in 
heaven to be my witness, that I know nothing 
of it, no more than a child.' Proctor, the 
husband, being present in court, the afflicted 
girls cried out against him, saying he was a 
wizard, and again exhibited their tricks and 
fits. The question was put by the court, 
1 Who hurts you ? ' Answer. ' Goodman 
Proctor, and his wife too.' By the court. 



'■ 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 133 

* What do you say, Goodman Proctor, to these 
things V ' I know not, I am entirely innocent.' 
It is no less painful than astonishing to add 
that by such miserable evidence, Proctor and 
his wife were both condemned and executed. 
Proctor earnestly entreated that he might be 
allowed a few days to prepare himself for 
death, and at his execution he desired in the 
most affecting manner that Mr Noyes would 
pray with, and for him ; but his request was 
cruelly denied him, because he would not con- 
fess himself to be a wizard* 

August 19th, 1692 , five persons were exe- 
cuted, all protesting their innocence in the 
firmest manner. One of this number was Mr 
George Burroughs, who had been a preacher 
several years before at Salem village, where 
there had been some misunderstanding between 
him and the people ; afterwards he became a 
preacher at Wells. It was alleged against Mr 
Burroughs, that he had been seen to perform 
feats of strength exceeding the natural powers 
of man* He had lifted a barrel of molasses 
or cider from a canoe, and carried it to the 
shore. He would, with one hand, extend a 
heavy musket of six or seven feet barrel, at 
9t 



134 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

arm's length . In addition to these charges, it 
was urged by the writers of that day, as a 
principal part of the evidence, that seven or 
eight of the confessing witches witnessed 
against him. But it will appear from the exam- 
inations by the court, that their evidence was 
drawn from them. For example. Question 
to Mary Lacey. ' Was there not a man among 
you at your meetings V 4 None but the devil/ 
1 Your mother and grandmother say there was 
a minister there ; did you not see men there V 
' There was a minister there, and I think he is 
now in prison/ ' Vv T as there not one Mr Bur- 
roughs there V ' Yes/ — Question to another 
witness. l Were there not two ministers there V 
i I heard Sarah Good talk of a minister or 
two, one of them is he that has been to the 
eastward ; his name is Burroughs/ Margaret 
Jacobs had been brought to accuse herself of 
being a witch, and then to charge Burroughs 
the minister, and her own grandfather, but 
afterwards being struck with horror, she chose 
to lose her own life rather than persist in her 
confession. She begged forgiveness of Bur- 
roughs before his execution, who is said to 
have freely forgiven her ; and to have prayed 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 135 

with, and for her. She also recanted all she 
had said against her grandfather, but all in 
vain as to his life. Some of the accusers as- 
serted that Burroughs often attended the witch 
or devil's sacrament. Some testified, that, in 
their torments, Burroughs tempted them to go 
to a sacrament ; and he would, with the sound 
of a trumpet, summon other witches; who, 
quickly after the sound, would come from all 
quarters unto the rendezvous. Numerous 
other charges, equally frivolous, were brought 
against this unfortunate minister, as stated by 
Dr Cotton Mather ; among others, his venom- 
ous bites, leaving the prints of his teeth upon 
the flesh, which would compare precisely with 
his set of teeth. It is seldom that a man, 80 
years of age, can boast a good set of teeth, 
and some said that he had not one in his head, 
and could be no other than imaginary teeth, 
but these could answer their purpose. Bur- 
roughs had been twice married, and it was re- 
ported of him, perhaps truly, that he had 
treated his wives unkindly. 

' Several of the bewitched/ adds Dr Cotton 
Mather, ' gave in their testimony that they 
had been troubled with the apparitions of two 
9* 



136 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

women, who said they were Burroughs' two 
wives, and that he had been the death of them, 
and that the magistrates must be told of it, 
before whom, if Burroughs upon his trial de- 
nied it, they did not know but they should 
appear against him in court. Burroughs being 
now on trial, one of the bewitched persons 
was cast into horror at the ghosts of the two 
deceased wives, then appearing before him, 
and crying for vengeance against him. But 
he, though much appalled, utterly denied that 
he discerned anything of it : nor was this/ 
adds Dr Mather, ' any part of his conviction.'* 

* In an English court, a witness was about to relate 
an account of a murder as he received it from the 
ghost of the murdered person. * Hold, sir,* said the 
judge ; ' The ghost is an excellent witness, and his 
evidence the best possible, but he cannot be heard by 
proxy in this court ; summon him hither, and I'll hear 
him in person ; but your communication is mere hear- 
say, which my office compels me to reject.' If a court 
or magistrate will listen to ghost evidence to convict a 
reputed criminal, why not admit the same evidence on 
the contrary, in proof of innocence. And if a judge or 
magistrate countenance or abet such kind of juggling 
with diabolical influence, do they not come under the 
penalty of the statute of King James, which interdicts 
all acts of sorcery whatever, and all charms for em- 
ploying spirits ? 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 137 

It was testified by some of the witnesses, that 
the prisoner had been at witch meetings with 
them ; and that he was the person who had 
seduced them into the snares of witchcraft ; 
that he promised them fine clothes for doing 
it ; that he brought puppets to them, and thorns 
to stick into those puppets, for the afflicting of 
other people ; and that he exhorted them with 
the rest of the crew to bewitch all Salem vil- 
lage, but be sure to do it gradually, if they 
would prevail in what they did. It was testi- 
fied of one Ruck, brother-in-law to the prison- 
er, that himself and sister, with Burroughs, 
going out two or three miles to gather straw- 
berries, Ruck, with his sister, rode home very 
moderately with Burroughs on foot in company. 
Burroughs stepped aside into the bushes, where- 
upon they halted and holloed for him. He 
not answering, they proceeded homewards 
with a quickened pace, and yet, when they 
were got near home, to their astonishment 
they found him on foot with them, having a 
basket of strawberries. Burroughs then fell 
to chiding his wife for speaking to her brother 
of him on the road ; which, when they won- 
dered at, he said he knew their thoughts. 



138 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

Ruck being startled at that, intimated that 
the devil himself, did not know so far. Bur- 
roughs answered, ' My God makes known 
your thoughts unto me.' The prisoner at the 
bar had nothing to answer unto what was thus 
witnessed against him, that was worth consid- 
ering. ( But the court began to think/ says 
Dr Mather, ' that he then stepped aside only 
that by the assistance of the black man he 
might put on his invisibility, and in that fascin- 
ating mist, gratify his own jealous humor to 
hear what they said of him/ This is paying 
no great compliment to the philosophical 
character of the court. Burroughs was, how- 
ever, condemned, and was carried in rags in a 
cart through the streets of Salem, to his exe- 
cution ; and his body was dragged by the rope 
over the ground, and buried among some rocks, 
one hand and part of the face left imcovered. 
When on the ladder, he repeated the Lord's 
Prayer ; probably because it was the popular 
opinion, that a wizard is deprived of the power 
of doing it, and he also protested against the 
injustice of his sufferings with such awful so- 
lemnity, as to affect the spectators to tears, 
and it was by some apprehended that the 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 139 

populace would have prevented the execution. 
He suffered this ignominious death at the age 
of about 80 years, with fervent prayers that 
the dreadful delusion might cease. As soon 
as he was turned off, Br Cotton Mather, being 
mounted, addressed himself to the people, de- 
claring that Burroughs was not an ordained 
minister, and that there was the fullest proof 
of his guilt. Dr Increase Mather, equally 
credulous in these things with his son, in his 
u Cases of Conscience," affirms, that he was 
present at the trial of Burroughs, and had he 
been one of his judges, he could not have ac- 
quitted him. * For several persons did on oath 
testify, that they saw him do such things as no 
man that has not a devil to be his familiar, 
could perform, ' 

John Willard was another who suffered 
about the same time. He had been employed 
in looking up witches, but at last refusing to 
fetch in more, as he deemed it unjust, he was 
accused. He at first made his escape to a 
distance of forty miles, but was overtaken and 
condemned. Giles Corey, aged about 80 
years, was brought to trial, but refused to plead, 
being unwilling to be tried by a jury that 



T 



140 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

cleared no one ; he was therefore pressed to 
death. When in the agonies of death, the 
victim thrust out his tongue, and the officer 
pushed it into his mouth with his cane. This 
was the first, and I believe the only one, who 
was pressed to death in New England, though 
there had been examples of it in Old England. 
Corey's wife suffered at the gallows, where 
she made an eminent prayer. 

September 22d, eight were executed, the 
horse carrying them together in a cart to the 
gallows, failed for a short time, and the accus- 
ers said the devil hindered it ; but it may be 
asked, if he had power to arrest the cart for a 
moment, why not stop it altogether, and pre- 
vent the executions 1 But they shew no signs 
of confidence or hope in his power to save 
them. One Wardwell, having formerly con- 
fessed himself guilty and afterwards denied it, 
was brought upon his trial. Kis former con- 
fession and spectre evidence were adduced 
against him ; but his own wife and daughter 
accused him and saved themselves. ' There 
are/ says Hutchinson, 'many instances of 
children accusing their parents, and some, of 
parents accusing their children. This is the 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 141 

only instance of a wife or husband accusing 
one the other, and surely this instance ought 
not to have been suffered. I shudder while I 
relate it. 1 Besides these irregularities, there 
were others in the course of these trials. At 
the execution of Wardwell, while he was 
speaking to the people, protesting his inno- 
cence, the executioner being at the same time 
smoking his pipe, the smoke coming in his 
face interrupted his discourse, the accusers 
said the devil hindered him with smoke. 
>^j\lrs English was a woman of superior mind, 
and an excellent education ; but was thought 
not to be very condescending or charitable to 
the poor ; and by some of them she was ac- 
cused of witchcraft. The officer read to her 
the warrant in the evening, and guards were 
placed round her house. In the morning, 
after attending the devotions of the family, she 
kissed her children with great composure, 
proposed her plan of education, and took leave 
of them, and told the officer she was ready to 
die, being confident that would be her fate. 
After being examined, she was by indulgence 
committed to custody in a public house, where 
her husband frequently visited her, and this 



142 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

occasioned an accusation against him. Being 
a man of large property, a merchant in Salem, 
and having considerable influence, he fortu- 
nately obtained permission to be confined with 
his wife in a prison in Boston, till the time of 
trial. Here their friends found means to effect 
their escape, and they fled to New York, 
where they were received with friendly atten- 
tion by Governor Fletcher. In the winter 
following, Mr English sent generous supplies 
to the suffering poor at Salem ; but on his re- 
turn after the storm had subsided, he found 
his house plundered, and his property so re- 
duced, that from an estate valued at <£15Q0, 
he realized only about .£300. 

In July, one Goody Foster was examined 
before four justices. She had confessed many 
things of herself, but her daughter now confess- 
ed others in which she was concerned. She 
was told that her daughter was with her when 
she rode on the stick, and was with her at the 
witch meetings, and was asked how long her 
daughter had been engaged with her. She 
replied that she had no knowledge of it at all. 
She was then told that one of the afflicted 
persons said, that Goody Carryer's shape told 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 143 

e her that Goody Foster had made her daughter 
a witch about thirteen years ago. She replied 
J ' that she knew no more about her daughter's 
^ being a witch, than what day she should die. 
1 If I knew anything more I would speak it to 
; the utmost. The daughter being called in, 
and asked whether she had any discourse with 
her mother while riding on the stick, replied, 
I think not a word. Next comes the impor- 
tant question by the magistrate, ' Who rid 
foremost on that stick to the village V ' I sup- 
pose my mother.' The mother replied, ' no, 
/Goody Carryer was foremost.' It might be 
supposed that it was time for the magistrates 
to stop ; but they proceed to question the 
daughter. ( How many years since they were 
baptized, who baptized them, and how?' 
1 Three or four years I suppose ; the old ser- 
pent dipped their heads in the water, saying 
they were his, and that he had power over 
them forever and ever.' ' How many were 
baptized that day, and who were they V ' I 
think there were six, some of the chiefs, they 
were of the higher powers.' The old woman's 
grandaughter, M. Lacey, was now called in, 
and instantly M. Warren fell into a violent fit, 



144 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

but was soon restored when Lacey laid her 
hand on her arm. Question by the justices. 
1 How dare you come in here and bring the U 
devil with you to afflict these poor creatures ; the 
which way do you do it?' ' I cannot tell. If ta 
my mother made me a witch I did not know j w; 
it.' She was now directed to look on M. 
Warren in a friendly way, without injuring 
her ; but in doing so she struck her down with 
her eyes. Being asked if she would now ac- 
knowledge herself to be a witch, she said yes* 
Being asked how long, she said she had not 
been a witch above a week. The devil ap- 
peared to her in the shape of a horse, bidding 
her worship him, and fear nothing, and he 
would not bring her out, but he has proved a 
liar from the beginning. The questions being 
still put to her, she again said, she had been a 
witch but a little more than a week ; but at 
another time she replied, that the devil appear- 
ed to her a little more than a year ago for the 
first time. 

Among other persons accused of witchcraft, 
was Mrs Hale, whose husband, the minister of 
Beverly, had been very active in these prose- 
cutions ; this was a stroke which the good man 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 145 

was not prepared to receive. Being fully sat- 
isfied of his wife's innocence, the question 
was now suggested and controverted, whether 
the devil could afflict in a good person's shape, 
taking it for granted, that the minister's wife 
was a good person. The accusation of Mrs 
Hale, and some others of respectable charac- 
ter, brought them to believe that the devil 
could so manage matters as that the afflicted 
person should think he did. This affair effected 
a considerable alteration in the sentiments and 
conduct of Mr Hale. He became much more 
moderate and rational in his views of witch- 
craft. In the midst of their distress and con- 
fusion, the clergymen of the town and vicinity 
held a consultation by request of the governor 
and council, upon the state of things as they 
stood ; particularly, to consider the question, 
whether Satan may not appear in the shape of 
an innocent and pious, as well as of a nocent 
and wicked person, to afflict such as suffer by 
diabolical molestation ? They reported, among 
other things, as their opinion, f That presump- 
tions, whereupon persons may be committed, 
and much more, convictions, as being guilty of 
witchcraft, ought certainly to be more con- 
10 



146 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

siderable than barely the accused person's 
being represented by a spectre unto the afflict- 
ed ; inasmuch as it is an undoubted and no- 
torious thing, that a demon may by God's per- 
mission appear even to ill purposes, in the 
shape of an innocent, yea, of a virtuous man. 
Nor can we esteem alterations made in the 
sufferers by a look or touch of the accused, to 
be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently 
liable to be abused by the devil's legerdemain.' 
Among the confessing witches were D. 
Falkner, a child of ten years, A. Falkner, of 
eight, and S. Carryer, between seven and 
eight. Sarah Carryer' s confession. It was 
asked by the magistrates. * How long hast 
thou been a witch V ' Ever since I was six 
years old.' ' How old are you now V ' Near 
eight years old ; brother Richard says I shall 
be eight years old next November.' ' Who 
made you a witch V ' My mother. She made 
me set my hand to a book. I touched it with 
my fingers, and the book was red, the paper 
was white.' Being questioned she said she 
never had seen the black man, the place where 
she did it. was in a pasture, and her aunt T. 
and her cousins were there. They promised 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 147 

5 to give her a black dog, but the dog never 
■ came to her. ' But you said you saw a cat 
' once, what did that say to you V ( It said it 
would tear me in pieces if I would not set my 
hand to the book. 5 She said her mother bap- 
tized her, and the devil or black man was not 
i there as she saw. She said she afflicted peo- 
ple by pinching them, she had no puppets, her 
mother carried her to afflict. ' How did your 
mother carry you when she was in prison V 
c She came like a black cat.' ' How did you 
know it was your mother V ' The cat told me 
she was my mother. 5 This poor child 5 s mo- 
ther was then under sentence of death, and 
the mother of the other two children was in 
prison also, and was soon after tried and con- 
demned. 

The following is among the affecting in- 
stances of confessors retracting their confes- 
sions. 

The humble declaration of Margaret Jacobs 
unto the honored court now sitting at Salem, 
showeth, ' That whereas your poor and hum- 
ble declarant, being closely confined in Salem 
jail, for the crime of witchcraft, which crime, 
thanks be to the Lord, I am altogether ignorant 



148 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

of, as will appear at the great day of judgment. 
May it please the honored court, I was cried 
out upon by some of the possessed persons, as 
afflicting them ; whereupon I was brought to 
my examination, which persons at the sight of 
me fell down, which did very much startle and 
affright me. The Lord above knows I knew 
nothing in the least degree who afflicted them ; 
they told me without doubt I did, or they 
would not fall down at seeing me ; they told 
me if I would not confess, I should be put 
down into the dungeon, and would be hanged ; 
but if I would confess I should have my life 
spared ; the which did so affright me, that to 
save my life, I did make the confession, which 
confession, may it please the honored court, is 
altogether false and untrue. The very first 
night after, I was in such horror of conscience 
that I could not sleep, for fear the devil would 
carry me away for telling such horrid lies. I 
was, may it please the honored court, sworn to 
my confession, as I understand since, but at 
that time I was ignorant of it, not knowing 
what an oath did mean. The Lord, I hope, 
in whom I trust, out of the abundance of his 
mercy, will forgive me my false forswearing 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 149 

myself. What I said was altogether false 
against my grandfather and Mr Burroughs, 
which I did to save my life and to have my 
liberty ; but the Lord charging it to my con- 
science, made me in so much horror, that I 
could not contain myself before I had denied 
my confession ; choosing rather death with a 
quiet conscience, than to live in such horror. 
And now, may it please your honors, I leave 
it to your pious and judicious discretion, to 
take pity and compassion on my young and 
tender years, to act and to do with me as the 
Lord and your honors shall see good ; having 
no friend but the Lord to plead my cause, not 
being guilty in the least measure of the crime 
of witchcraft, nor any other sin that deserves 
death from the hands of man.' 

The horrid scourge of witchcraft was, by 
means of the imprudence, or rather the folly, 
of an individual, extended to the town of An- 
dover. One Joseph Ballard, of that town, 
sent to Salem for some of the accusers who 
pretended to have the spectral sight to tell him 
who afflicted his wife, who was then sick of a 
fever. Soon after this, fifty persons at Ando- 
ver were accused of witchcraft, many of whom 
10* 



150 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

were among the most reputable families. 
Here the nonsensical stories of riding on poles 
through the air, were circulated. Many pa- 
rents believed their children to be witches, 
and many husbands their wives, &lc. 

The following is the grand jury's bill against 
Mary Osgood. 

1 The jurors for our sovereign Lord and 
Lady the King and Queen present, that Mary 
Osgood, wife of Captain Joseph Osgood, of 
Andover, in the county of Essex, about eleven 
years ago, wickedly, maliciously, and feloni- 
ously, a covenant with the devil did make, and 
signed the devil's book, and took the devil to 
be her God, and consented to serve and wor- 
ship him, and was baptized by the devil, and 
renounced her former christian baptism, and 
promised to be the devil's, both body and soul, 
forever, and to serve him ; by which diabolical 
covenant by her made with the devil, she, the 
said Mary Osgood, is become a detestable 
witch, against the peace of our sovereign Lord 
and Lady the King and Queen, their crown 
and dignity, and the laws in that case made 
and provided.' 

The foregoing bill was grounded principally 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 151 

on her own confession, the purport of which 
is as follows. — That about eleven years ago, 
w T hen she was in a melancholy state, upon a 
certain time while walking in her orchard, she 
saw the appearance of a cat at the end of her 
house, which she supposed was a real cat, 
about this time she made a covenant with the 
devil, &c. She said further, that about two 
years agone, she was carried through the air 
in company with three others, whom she nam- 
ed, to five mile pond, where she was baptized 
by the devil, and was transported back again 
through the air in the same manner in which 
she went, and believes they were carried on a 
pole. She confesses that she had afflicted 
three persons, and that she did it by pinching 
her bed clothes, and giving consent the devil 
should do it in her shape, and that the devil 
could not do it without her consent. When 
in court, she afflicted several persons, as they 
pretended, and they were as usual restored by 
her touching their hands. It was not long 
after, that the said Mary Osgood, with five 
other women, who had, when in danger, con- 
fessed themselves guilty, retraced their con- 
fessions, stating that ' they were blind-folded, 
LOf 



» 



152 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

and their hands were laid on the afflicted per* 
sons who fell into fits ; others when they felt 
our hands, said they were well, and that we 
were guilty of afflicting them, whereupon we 
were committed to prison. By reason of that 
sudden surprisal, knowing ourselves perfectly 
innocent, we were exceedingly astonished and 
amazed, consternated and afflicted out of our 
reason. Our nearest and dearest friends and 
relations, seeing our awful situation, entreated 
us to make confession, as the only way to save 
our lives. They, out of tender love and pity, 
persuaded us to make such confession, telling 
us we were witches, they knew it, and we 
knew it, and they knew that w T e knew it, which 
made us think it w r as really so. Our un- 
derstanding and reasoning faculties almost 
gone, we were incapable of judging of our 
condition. Some time after, when w r e had 
been better composed, they telling us what, we 
had confessed, we did profess we were innocent 
of such things.' The testimonials to these 
persons' characters, says Governor Hutchinson, 
by the principal inhabitants of Andover, will 
outweigh the credulity of the justices who 
committed, or of the grand jury which found 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 153 

bills against them. Fiftythree reputable in- 
habitants of Andover, addressed the court, 
held at Salem, stating that ' they are women 
of whom we can truly give this character and 
commendation, that they have not only lived 
among us so inoffensively as not to give the 
least occasion to suspect them of witchcraft, 
but by their sober, godly, and exemplary lives 
and conversation, have obtained a good report 
in the place, where they have been well es- 
teemed and approved in the church, of which 
they are members.' 

One Dudley Bradstreet, a justice of peace 
in Andover, having himself committed thirty 
or forty persons to prison for supposed witch- 
craft, himself and wife were both accused, and 
they were obliged to flee for their lives. The 
accusers reported, that Mr Bradstreet had 
killed nine persons, for they saw the ghosts of 
murdered persons hover over those that had 
killed them. A dog being afflicted at Salem, 
those that had the spectral sight said, that J. 
Bradstreet, brother of the justice, afflicted the 
dog and then rode upon him. He also was 
glad to make his escape, and the dog was 
killed. Another dog was said to afflict others, 
10J 



154 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

and they fell into fits when the dog looked on 
them, and he was killed. At length a worthy 
gentleman of Boston, being accused by some 
of those at Andover, sent a writ to arrest the 
accusers in a thousand pound action, for de- 
famation. From that time the accusations at 
Andover generally ceased, to the unspeakable 
joy of the inhabitants. 

This tremendous storm continued sixteen 
months in Salem, in which was displayed a 
great want of sober wisdom in some, and of 
moral honesty in others, while a spirit of su- 
perstitious persecution, almost without a paral- 
lel, generally prevailed. Nineteen innocent 
persons were hanged, one pressed to death, 
and eight more condemned ; and about fifty 
confessed themselves witches, of which not 
one was executed. Above one hundred and 
fifty were in prison, and above two hundred 
more, being accused, it was thought proper to 
put a stop to further prosecutions. The per- 
sons in the prisons were set at liberty, and 
those who had fled returned home in peace. 
Experience showed that the more were appre- 
hended, the more were afflicted by Satan, and 
the number of confessors increasing, increased 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 155 

the number of the accused ; and the executing 
of some made way for the apprehension of 
others, till the numbers became actually 
alarming to the public, and it was feared that 
Salem had involved some innocent persons, as 
all the nineteen denied the crime to their 
death. 

The late Dr Bentley of Salem, in his His- 
tory of that town, published in the Historical 
Society's Collections, observes, that ' the scene 
was like a torrent, sudden, irresistible, and 
momentary. They who thought they saw the 
delusion, did not expose it, and they who were 
deluded were terrified into distraction. For a " 
time no life was safe. On the trials, children v ' 
below twelve years of age obtained a hearing 
before magistrates. Indians came and related 
their own knowledge of invisible beings. 
Tender females told every fright, but not one 
man of reputation ventured to offer a single 
report, or to oppose openly the overwhelming 
torrent. Nothing could be more ridiculous 
than a mere narrative of the evidence. It 
would be an affront to the sober world. The 
terror was so great, that at the hazard of life, 
they who were charged with guilt confessed it, 



156 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

and the confessions blinded the judges. The 
public clamors urged them on, and the novelty 
of the calamity deprived them of all ability to 
investigate its true causes, till nineteen inno- 
cent persons were made victims to the public 
credulity/ ' From March to August,1692,' says 
Dr Bentley, ' was the most distressing time 
Salem ever knew ; business was interrupted, 
the town deserted, terror was in every counte- 
nance, and distress in every heart. Every 
place was the subject of some direful tale, fear 
haunted every street, melancholy dwelt in si- 
lence in every place after the sun retired. 
The population was diminished, business could 
not, for some time, recover its former channels, 
and the innocent suffered with the guilty. 
But as soon as the judges ceased to condemn, 
the people ceased to accuse. Terror at the 
violence and the guilt of the proceedings, suc- 
ceeded instantly to the conviction of blind zeal, 
and what every man had encouraged, all now 
professed to abhor. Every expression of sor- 
row was found in Salem. The church erased 
all the ignominy they had attached to the dead, 
by recording a most humble acknowledgment 
of their error. But a diminished population, 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 157 

the injury done to religion, and the distress of 
the aggrieved, were seen and felt with the 
greatest sorrow.' 

I quote the following from Judge Story's 
Centennial Discourse. 

1 The whole of these proceedings exhibit 
melancholy proofs of the effects of superstition 
in darkening the mind, and steeling the heart 
against the dictates of humanity. Indeed no- 
thing has ever been found more vindictive and 
cruel than fanaticism, acting under the influ- 
ence of preternatural terror, and assuming to 
punish offences created by its own gloomy 
reveries. Under such circumstances it be- 
comes itself the very demon whose agency it 
seeks to destroy. It loses sight of all the 
common principles of reason and evidence. 
It sees nothing around it but victims for sacri- 
fice. It hears nothing but the voice of its own 
vengeance. It believes nothing but what is 
monstrous and incredible. It conjures up 
every phantom of superstition, and shapes it 
to the living form of its own passions and 
frenzies. In short, insanity could hardly 
devise more refinements in barbarity, or profli- 
gacy execute them with more malignant cool- 



158 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

ness. In the wretched butcheries of these 
times, (for so they in fact were,) in which law 
and reason were equally set at defiance, we 
have shocking instances of unnatural conduct. 
We find parents accusing their children, child- 
ren their parents, and wives their husbands, of [ 
a crime, which must bring them to the scaf- 
fold. We find innocent persons, misled by 
the hope of pardon, or wrought up to frenzy 
by the pretended sufferings of others, freely 
accusing themselves of the same crime. We 
find gross perjury practised to procure con- 
demnations, sometimes for self protection, and 
sometimes from utter recklessness of conse- 
quences. We find even religion itself made 
an instrument of vengeance. We find minis- 
ters of the gospel and judges of the land, 
stimulating the work of persecution, until at 
last in its progress its desolations reached their 
own firesides. , 

There are not wanting, Hutchinson ob- 
serves, those who are willing to suppose the 
accusers to have been under bodily disorders, 
which affected their imaginations. This is 
kind and charitable, but seems to be winking 
the truth out of sight. A little attention must 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 159 

force conviction, that the whole was a scene of 
fraud and imposture, commenced by young girls, 
who at first, perhaps, thought of nothing more 
than exciting an interest in their sufferings, and 
continued by adult persons, who were afraid of 
being accused themselves. Rather than confess 
their fraud, they permitted the lives of so 
many innocent persons to be sacrificed. None 
of the pretended afflicted were ever brought 
upon trial for their fraud ; some of them proved 
profligate persons, abandoned to all vice, oth-. 
ers passed their days in obscurity and con- 
tempt. 

In December, 1696, there was a proclama- 
tion for a fast, in which there was this clause, 
\ That God would shew us what we know not, 
and help us wherein we have done amiss, re- 
ferring to the late tragedy raised among them 
by Satan and his instruments, through the 
awful judgment of God. On the day of the 
fast, at the South meeting-house in Boston, 
Judge Sewall, who had sat on the bench at the 
trials, delivered in a paper to be read publicly, 
and he stood up while it was reading. It ex- 
pressed in a very humble manner, that he was 
apprehensive he might have fallen into some 



160 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 



error in the trials at Salem, and praying that 
the guilt of such miscarriages may not be im- 
puted either to the country in general, or to 
him or his family in particular, and asking 
forgiveness of God and man. The Chief 
Justice, Mr Stoughton, being informed of this 
action of one of his brethren, observed for 
himself, that when he sat in judgment, he had 
the fear of God before his eyes, and gave his 
opinion according to the best of his under- 
standing ; and although it might appear after- 
wards that he had been in an error, yet he 
saw no necessity of a public acknowledgment 
of it. 

Twelve men who had served as jurors in 
court at Salem, in 1692, published a recanta- 
tion of their sentiments, and an apology for 
their doings on the trials; stating that they 
were incapable of understanding, nor able to 
withstand the mysterious delusions of the pow- 
ers of darkness, and the prince of the air, but 
for want of knowledge and information from 
others, took up such evidence against the ac- 
cused as, on further consideration and better 
information, they justly fear they have been 
instrumental with others, though ignorantly 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 161 

it and unwittingly, to bring upon themselves the 
i. guilt of innocent blood, &c. They express 
a deep sense of sorrow for their errors in act- 
| ing on such evidence to the condemnation of 
f persons, declaring with deep humility that they 
1 were deluded and mistaken, for which they 
are much distressed and disquieted in mind. 
They humbly beg forgiveness of God, and 
praying that they may be considered candidly 
and aright by the surviving sufferers, acknow- 
ledging themselves under the power of strong 
and general delusion. They again ask for- 
giveness of all whom they may have offended, 
declaring they would not do such things again 
for the whole world. 

As this great calamity began in the house of 
Mr Parris, and he had been a witness and very 
zealous prosecutor of the supposed offenders, 
many of his church withdrew from his com- 
munion, and in April, 1693, they drew up ar- 
ticles against him. ' They charge the said 
Parris of teaching such dangerous errors, and 
preaching such scandalous immoralities as 
ought to discharge any man, though ever so 
gifted otherwise, from the work of the minis- 
try. Particularly, in his oath against the lives 



162 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

of several, wherein he swears, that the prison- 
ers with their looks knock down those pre- 
tended sufferers. We humbly conceive, that 
he who swears to more than he is certain of, is 
equally guilty of perjury with him that swears 
to what is false.' 

They were so settled in their aversion, that 
they continued their persecutions for three or 
four years ; and in July, 1 697, they presented 
a remonstrance to arbitration, in which they ac- 
cuse him of ' believing the devil's accusations, 
and readily departing from all charity to per- 
sons, though of blameless and godly lives, upon 
such suggestions against them ; his promoting 
such accusations, as also his partiality in sti- 
fling the accusations of some, and vigilantly 
promoting others. His applying to those who 
have a familiar spirit to know who afflicted 
the people ; which we consider as an implicit 
denying the providence of God, which alone 
we believe can send afflictions, or cause devils 
to afflict the people. By these practices and 
principles, Mr Parris hath been the beginner 
and procurer of the sorest afflictions, not to 
this village only, but this whole country, that 
did ever befall them. 5 Mr Parris did at length 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT, 163 

acknowledge his errors, but the people would 
hot be satisfied till he was entirely dismissed. 
At the period when the prosecutions for 
witchcraft were conducted at Salem, Sir Wil- - 
liam Phipps was governor of the Colony. He 
was a native of New England, of obscure ori- 
gin, and very illiterate. His title and his afflu- 
ence were acquired by fortuitous circumstances, 
not from any meritorious or honorable achieve- 
ments. Mr Phipps had, by some means, ob- 
tained information that a Spanish ship loaded 
with gold and silver, had been wrecked on the 
coast of La Plata, many years before, and he 
resolved on a bold effort to possess himself of 
the booty. For the purpose of procuring as- 
sistance in the enterprise, he performed a voy- 
age to England, where he obtained partners 
and associates, and from thence he proceeded 
to La Plata, in 1687. He was so fortunate as 
to discover the hulk, from which he recovered 
gold and silver to the amount of =£300,000, 
his own share being <£! 6,000. Having re- 
turned to England, and being introduced to 
men of rank and influence, he received from 
King James the Second, the honor of knight- 
hood, and was commissioned as Governor of 
11 



164 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

his native Colony. But, though a man of 
piety and integrity, he was not qualified to 
support the dignity of the office to which he 
had the honor of being promoted. 

Sir Williarruwas a firm believer in witchcraft, 
and among the first acts of his authority, was 
an order for chaining the witches ; stupidly be- 
lieving that if the body was chained, the wicked 
spirit within could exert no power. But before 
the close of the tragedies, in which his excel- 
lency was so zealous an actor, his own wife, 
was by some of the complainants, accused of 
being a witch ; but through favor to the gov- 
ernor's lady, she escaped without chains or 
halter. 

It appears that Dr Cotton Mather was one 
of the leading champions in the persecution of 
witches. In October, 1692, at the desire of 
the governor, he published an account of the 
trials of seven of those who had been con- 
demned and executed, in which he states that 
the court grounded their proceedings chiefly 
on the.laws of England, and precedents found 
in books from thence. In his preface he has 
this passage.. ' If in the midst of the many dis- 
satisfactions among us, the publication of these 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 165 

trials may promote a pious thankfulness unto 
God for justice being so far executed among 
us, I shall rejoice that God is glorified ; and 
pray that no wrong steps of ours may ever sully 
any of his glorious works/ But it should be 
remembered that no condemnation can receive 
the sanction of justice nor the countenance of 
Christians, unless the party is fairly convicted 
by full and substantial human evidence. It is 
a most extraordinary circumstance that the ru- 
lers and judges, and the eminent divines of 
that day, should overlook the reasonable max- 
im in the Jewish constitution, that every word 
or thing admitted for evidence in the decision 
shall be established by the concurrence of what 
cometh from the mouth of two or three credi- 
ble witnesses. ' So you will not pollute with 
blood the land in which you dwell.' — ( And if 
a false witness rise up against a man, and ac- 
cuse him of any crime, the two men before 
whom is the controversy, shall stand before 
the Lord, and before the priests, and before 
the judges, who may be in those days. And 
when the judges have made a strict examina- 
tion, if the false witness hath testified false- 
hoods, and risen up against his brother ; you 



166 SALEM WITCHCRAFT, 

shall do to him as he wickedly thought to do 
to his brother.'* It is melancholy to reflect 
that no instance can be found on record of a 
false witness against the innocent victims at 
Salem having been brought to merited punish- 
ment. 

Dr Mather, in his work entitled * Wonders 
of the Invisible World/ produced an abridg- 
ment of the trials of the two women condemn- 
ed by Lord Hale, 1664, and also an abridge 
ment of the rules and signs by which witches 
are to be discovered, of which he says there 
are above thirty. His production received 
the approbation of two of the judges of the 
court, one of whom was the chief justice and 
lieutenant governor. The author's father, Dr 
Increase Mather, also expressed his coinci- 
dence in the same sentiments. The work is, 
nevertheless, a singular and curious production ; 
it evinces, most clearly, that the reverend au- 
thor, in the fervency of zeal, suffered his mind 
to be deeply imbued with bigotry and depress- 
ing superstition. Dr Mather was eminent for 
extensive knowledge and christian piety ; but 

* Numbers, xxxv- 30. Deut. xvii. 6, and xix. 15, 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 167 

foibles and infirmities were his lot, and while 
his mind was enriched with knowledge, his 
heart must have sickened for lack of wisdom. 
He published 382 books and tracts on various 
subjects. In these he displays wit and fancy, 
and advocates with zeal the cause of religion ; 
and although his style is singular and verbose, 
his works contain rich and important matter 
for the historian and antiquary. It would be 
unjust not to acknowledge the debt of grati- 
tude due to Dr Mather for the immeasurable 
benefits which our country and the world have 
enjoyed from his efforts to introduce smallpox 
inoculation, in 1721. But the work now in 
question affords a striking example of the im- 
becility of mind in the absence of its glorious 
attributes. Sobriety of judgment is seduced 
by folly, and moral dignity is degraded by the 
intrusion of fictions of imagination, and the 
man becomes a dupe to his own credulity. He 
adopted, in the fullest extent, the doctrine of 
demons, and of supernatural compacts between 
Satan and witches, and was fatally blinded 
against the most palpable impositions practised 
on himself. But this distinguished divine was 
not singular in his proneness to bigoted and 
11* 



168 SALEM WITCHCRAFT, 

dogmatical principles and doctrines ; they 
were in perfect coincidence with the habits of 
thinking in the times in which he lived. His 
cotemporaries, who administered the affairs of 
government, and those who were called to de- 
cide in their judicial proceedings, had evidently 
imbibed the same gross absurdities ; and there 
is in our nature an unaccountable reluctance 
to discard errors, however preposterous. His 
publication teems with romantic and ludicrous 
stories, which he unwisely adduces for sub- 
stantial facts. A shrewd reply was made to 
it by R. Calef, a merchant of Boston, which 
led to a controversy between the two authors, 
on the subject of their inquiry. 

The following is an abridged narrative of 
the trials of B. Bishop, S. Martin, E. How, 
and M. Carryer, from Dr Mather's ' Wonders 
of the Invisible World.' 

' The court appeared to rely for evidence 
chiefly on the testimony of the accusers, and 
the incidents exhibited by the experiment with 
the parties in their presence on the trials. In 
all instances the presence of the accused 
would produce wonderful effects on the persons 
of the accusers. At a look, or cast of the 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 169 

eye, the accusers would instantly fall down as 
if in a fit or swoon, and would throw them- 
selves into unnatural and painful postures, and 
by the application of the witches' hand they 
were immediately restored.* Some complain- 
ed that the shape or spectre of B. Bishop, the 
prisoner on trial, pinched, choked, and bit 
them. One testified, that the shape of the 
prisoner, one day, took her from her wheel 
and carried her to the river side, threatening 
to drown her if she would not sign the devil's 
book, and said she had been the death of sev- 
eral persons whom she named. Another tes- 
tified, that there were apparitions or ghosts 
seen with the spectre of the prisoner, crying 
out " You murdered us." There was testi- 
mony, likewise, that a man striking once at a 
place where a bewitched person said the shape 

* Why not bewitch the magistrates as well as others, 
and save the victims from death ? If the witches, as- 
sisted by Satan, nave power over the laws of nature 
and the actions of men, how is it that their enemies es- 
cape with impunity ? If they possess the power of 
raising storms and sinking ships at sea, why not over- 
whelm both judge and jury in the ruins of falling houses 
and make a mock of the chains and ropes employed for 
their executions ? 
lit { 



170 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

of this Bishop stood, the bewitched cried out 
that he had torn her gown, and the woman's 
gown was found afterwards to be torn in the 
very place mentioned. 

One D. Hobbs having confessed herself to 
be a witch was now tormented by the spectres 
for her confession, and this Bisrnp tempted 
her to sign the book again, and to deny what 
she had confessed, and it was the shape of this 
prisoner which whipped her with iron rods to 
compel her thereto. To render it further un- 
questionable, that the prisoner at the bar was 
the person truly charged in this witchcraft, 
there were produced many evidences of other 
witchcrafts by her perpetrated. J. Cook testi- 
fied that, about five or six years ago, he was in 
his chamber assaulted by the shape of this 
prisoner, which looked on him, grinned at him, 
and very much hurt him with a blow on the 
side of his head ; and on the same day about 
noon, the same shape walked into his room, 
and an apple strangely flew out of his hand 
into the lap of his mother, six or eight feet 
.from him. S. Gray testified, that about four- 
teen years ago, he waked on a night and saw 
the room where he lay full of light, and saw 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 171 

plainly a woman between the cradle and the 
bed, which looked upon him. He rose, and 
it vanished, though the doors were all fast. 
He went to bed, and the same woman again 
assaulted him. The child in the cradle gave 
a great screech, and the woman disappeared. 
It was long before the child could be quieted ; 
though it were a very likely, thriving child, yet 
from this time it pined away, and after divers 
months died in a sad condition. He was sat- 
isfied that it was the apparition of this Bishop 
which had thus troubled him. B. Coman tes- 
tified, that eight years ago, as he lay awake in 
his bed with a light burning, he was annoyed 
with the apparition of this Bishop, and of two 
more, who came and oppressed him, that he 
could neither stir himself nor wake any one 
else ; the said Bishop took him by the throat 
and pulled him almost out of bed. The next 
night his kinsman lodged with him, and as 
they were discoursing together, they were vis- 
ited by the same guests, and the kinsman was 
struck speechless and unable to move hand or 
foot. He had laid his sword by him, which 
the spectres did strive much to wrest from him, 
but he held it too fast for them. S. Shattuck 
lit 



172 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

testified, that in the year 1680, this Bishop 
often came to his house on frivolous and fool- 
ish errands. Presently, whereupon, his eldest 
child began to droop exceedingly, and the 6ft- 
ener she came to his house the worse grew 
the child. He would be thrown and bruised 
against the stones by an invisible hand, and 
his face knocked against the sides of the house 
in a miserable manner, and the child's money, 
purse and all, would be unaccountably convey- 
ed out of a locked box, and never seen more. 
The child was taken with terrible fits, and did 
nothing but cry and sleep for several months 
together, and at length his understanding was 
utterly taken away. Among other symptoms 
of enchantment upon him, one was, that there 
was a board in the garden whereon he would 
walk, and all the invitations in the world could 
never fetch him off. About seventeen or 
eighteen years after, there came a stranger- to 
Shattuck's house, who, seeing the child, said 
this poor child is bewitched, and you have a 
neighbor who is a witch. 'J. Louder testified, 
that having some little controversy with Bishop 
about her fowls, he awaked in the night by 
moonlight, and clearly saw the likeness of this 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 173 

woman grievously oppressing him ; she held 
him, unable to help himself, till near day. He 
told her of this, but she utterly denied it. and 
threatened him very much. Soon after this, 
being' at home on a Lord's day, with the doors 
shut, he saw a black pig approach him, but it 
soon vanished away. Soon after he saw a 
black creature jump in at the window, and it 
came and stood before him. The body was 
like that of a monkey, the feet like a fowl's, 
but the face much like a man's. He was so 
extremely affrighted, that he could not speak ; 
he endeavored to clap his hand upon it, but 
could feel no substance, and it jumped out of 
the window again. He struck at it, but missed 
his blow, and broke his stick ; and the arm 
with which he struck was soon disabled. This 
same creature appeared again, and was going 
to fly at him, whereat he cried out, and it sprang 
back and flew over the apple tree, shaking 
many apples off the tree in flying over. At 
its leap it flung dirt with its feet against the 
stomach of the man, whereon he was then 
struck dumb, and so continued for three days. 
William Stacy testified, that having received 
some money of this Bishop for work done by 



174 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

him, he had gone but about three rods from 
her, when looking for his money it was unac- 
countably gone from him ; and being about six 
rods from her, with a small load in his cart, 
suddenly the off wheel sunk down into a hole 
upon plain ground, so that he was forced to 
get help for the recovery of the wheel ; but in 
searching for the hole in the ground, which 
might give him this disaster, there was none 
at all to be found. Soon after this, as he was 
in a dark night going to his barn, he was very 
suddenly lifted up from the ground and thrown 
against a stone wall ; and after that he was 
again hoisted up and thrown down a bank. 
At another time this deponent passing by the 
said Bishop, his horse with a small load, striv- 
ing to draw, all his gears flew to pieces, and 
the cart fell down, and the deponent going 
then to lift a bag of corn of about two bushels, 
could not lift it with all his might. Many other 
pranks of the prisoner this deponent was ready 
to testify. He verily believed that the said 
Bishop was the instrument of his daughter 
Priscilla's death. * To crown all, says the Dr, 
J. Bly, and W. Bly, testified, that being em- 
ployed by said Bishop to take down the cellar 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 175 

wall of the old house, wherein she formerly 
lived, they did, in holes of the said wall, find 
several puppets made up of rags and hogs' 
bristles, with headless pins in them, the points 
being outwards. Whereof she could now give 
no account unto the court, that was reasonable 
or tolerable. There might have been many 
more strange things brought against this wo- 
man, but there was no need of them. But 
there was one very strange thing more with 
which the court was entertained. As this 
woman was under guard, passing by the great 
and spacious meeting-house of Salem, she 
gave a look towards the house, and immedi- 
ately a demon, invisibly entering the meeting- 
house, tore down a part of it ; so that though 
there was no person to be seen there, yet the 
people at the noise, running in, found a board 
which was strongly fastened with several 
nails, transported into another quarter of the 
house.' 

It will doubtless be conceded, that if 
Bridget Bishop was actually guilty of all the 
disasters above detailed, she was a proper sub- 
ject for the gallows. 



176 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 



TRIAL. OF SUSANNA MARTIN, JUNE 29, 1692. 

Magistrate. ' Pray what ails these people V 

Martin. ( I don't know.' 

Magistrate. l But what do you think ails 
them V 

Martin. ' I do not desire to spend my 
judgment upon it.' j, 

Magistrate. ( Don't you think they are be- 
witched V 

Martin. ' No, I do not think they are.' 

Magistrate. ' Tell me your thoughts about 
them, then V 

Martin. ' No : my thoughts are my own, 
when they are in, but when they are out, then 
another's their master.' 

Magistrate. ' Their master ! who do you 
think is their master V 

Martin. ' If they be dealing in the black 
art you may know as well as I.' 

Magistrate. l Well, what have you done 
towards this V 

Martin. ' Nothing at all.' 

Magistrate. ' Why, it is you or your ap- 
pearance.' 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 177 

Martin. * I can't help it.' 

Magistrate. ' Is it not your master ? How 
comes your appearance to hurt these V 

Martin. ' How do I know ? He that ap- 
peared in the shape of Samuel, a glorified 
saint, may appear in any one's shape.' 

It was then also noted, that if the afflicted 
went to approach her, they were flung down 
to the ground. The court counted themselves 
alarmed by these things, to inquire farther into 
the conversation of the prisoner, and see what 
might occur to render these accusations further 
credible. John Allen testified, that he refused, 
because of the weakness of his oxen, to cart 
some stones, at the request of this Martin. 
She was displeased, and said it had been as 
good that he had, for his oxen should never do 
him any more service. Whereupon, as he was 
going home, one of his oxen tired, so that he 
was forced to unyoke him that he might get 
him home. He put his oxen, with many oth- 
ers, on Salisbury beach; they all ran into 
Merrimack river, and the next day were found 
on Plum Island. They next ran, with a vio- 
lence that seemed wholly diabolical, right into 
the sea, swimming as far as they could be 



178 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

seen ; and out of fourteen good oxen all were 
drowned, save one. John Atkinson testified, 
that he exchanged a cow with the son of said 
Martin, whereat she muttered and was unwil- 
ling he should have it. Going to receive his 
cow, though he hamstringed her, and haltered 
her, she, of a tame creature, grew so mad 
they could scarce get her along. She broke 
all the ropes that were fastened unto her, and, 
though she was tied fast to a tree, yet she 
made her escape, and gave them such further 
trouble, as they could ascribe it to no cause 
but witchcraft. J. Kemball testified, that the 
said Martin, upon a causeless disgust, threat- 
ened him that a certain cow should never do 
him any more service, and it came to pass ac- 
cordingly, for soon after the cow was found 
stark dead on the ground, without any dis- 
temper to be discerned upon her ; and this 
was followed with the death of several more 
of his cattle. ' But/ says the reverend author, 
' the said J. Kemball had a farther testimony 
against the prisoner, which was truly admira- 
ble. He applied himself to buy a dog of this 
Martin ; but she, not letting him have his 
choice, he said he would supply himself at one 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 179 

Blazdel's, and marked a puppy there which he 
liked. G. Martin, the husband of the prisoner, 
asked him if he would not have one of his 
wife's puppies, and he answered, no. Where- 
upon the prisoner replied, " As I live I will 
give him puppies enough." Within a few 
days after, Kemball coming out of the woods, 
there arose a little black cloud in the N. W 7 . 
and Kemball immediately felt a force upon 
him, which made him not able to avoid running 
upon the stumps of trees, although he had a 
broad, plain, cart way before him ; but though 
he had his axe on his shoulder to endanger 
him in his falling, be could not forbear going 
out of his way to tumble over them. When 
he came below the meeting-house, there ap- 
peared to him a little creature like a puppy, of 
a darkish color, and it shot backwards and 
forwards between his legs. He had the cour- 
age to use all possible endeavors to cut it with 
his axe, but he could not hit it, the puppy gave 
a jump from him, and went, as to him it seem- 
ed, into the ground. On going a little further, 
there appeared unto him a black puppy, bigger 
than the first, but as black as a coal. Its mo- 
tions were quicker than those of his axe. It 



180 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

flew at him and at his throat over his should- 
ers one way, and then over his shoulders an- 
other way ; his heart now began to fail him, 
and he thought the dog would have tore his 
throat out. But he recovered himself and 
called on God in his distress, and it vanished 
away at once.' — ' This S. Martin once walk- 
ed from Amesbury to Newbury in an extraor- 
dinary season, when it was not fit for any one 
to travel. She bragged and showed how dry 
she was ; it could not be perceived that so 
much as the soles of her shoes were wet. 
Being told that another person would have 
been wet up to the knees, she replied, " she 
scorned to be drabbed" It was noted that this 
testimony upon her trial, cast her kito a very 
singular confusion. John Pressy testified, 
that being one evening bewildered near the 
field of Martin, as under enchantment, he saw 
a marvellous light, about the bigness of a half 
bushel, near two rods out of the way. He 
struck at it with a stick and laid it on with all 
his might. He gave it near forty blows and 
felt it a palpable substance. But going from 
it, his heels were struck up, and he was laid 
with his back on the ground, sliding, as he 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 181 

thought, into a pit, from whence he recovered 
by taking hold on the bush, although afterwards 
he could find no pit in the place. Having 
gone five or six rods he saw S. Martin standing 
on his left hand, as the light had done before, 
but they changed no words with one another. 
At length he got home extremely affrighted. 
The next day it was upon inquiry understood, 
that Martin was in a miserable condition by 
pains and hurts that were upon her.' (Forty 
stout blows would have killed any one but a 
witch.) ' The deponent further testified, that 
having affronted the prisoner, many years ago, 
she said he should never prosper ; more par- 
ticularly, that he should never have more than 
two cows ; that though he were ever so likely 
to have more than two cows, yet he should 
never have them. From that very day to this, 
namely, for twenty years together, he could 
never exceed that number, but some strange 
thing or other still prevented his having more.' 

TRIAL OF ELIZABETH HOW, JUNE 30, 1692. 

6 The most remarkable things ascribed toE. 
How, were, that the sufferers complained of 
her as the cause of their distresses, and they 
12 



182 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

would fall down when she looked on them and 
were raised again on the touch of her hand. 
There was testimony, also, that the shape of 
her gave trouble to people nine or ten years 
ago. There were apparitions or ghosts testi- 
fied by some of the present sufferers, which 
ghosts affirmed that this How had murdered 
them. J. How, brother to the husband of the 
prisoner, testified, that having refused to ac- 
company her to her examination, as she desir- 
ed, immediately some of his cattle were be- 
witched to death, leaping three or four feet 
high, squeaking, falling, and dying at once ; 
and going to cut off an ear, the hand wherein 
the knife was held, was taken very numb and 
painful, and so remained for several days, and 
he suspected the prisoner as the cause of it 
N. Abbot testified, that unusual and mischiev- 
ous accidents would befall his cattle whenever 
he had any difference with her. Once in par- 
ticular, she wished his ox choked, and within 
a little while that ox was choked with a turnip 
in his throat. A woman, on some difference 
with How, was bewitched, and she died 
charging her of having a hand in her death. 
Many people had their barrels of beer unac- 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 183 

countably mischiefed, spoiled, and spilt, upon 
displeasing her. One testified, that they once 
and again lost great quantities of drink out of 
their vessels, in such a manner as they could 
ascribe it to nothing but witchcraft. And also 
that How once gave her some apples, and 
when she had eaten them, she was taken with 
a very strange kind of maze, so that she knew 
not what she said or did. There was likewise 
a cluster of depositions that one J. Cummings 
refused to lend his mare to the husband of the 
said How ; the mare was within a day or two 
taken in a strange condition. She seemed 
abused and bruised as if she had been running 
over the rocks, and was 'marked where the 
bridle went, as if burnt with a red hot bridle. 
On using a pipe of tobacco for the cure of the 
beast, a blue flame issued out of her which 
took hold of her hair and not only spread and 
burnt on her, but it also flew upwards towards 
the roof of the barn and like to have set the 
barn on fire, and the mare died very suddenly. 
F. Lane being hired by the husband of How 
to get him a parcel of posts and rails, Lane 
hired J. Pearly to assist him. The prisoner 
told Lane that the posts and rails would not do 



184 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

because Pearly helped him, but if he had got- 
ten them alone they might have done well 
enough. When How came to receive his 
posts and rails, on taking them up by the ends, 
they, though good and sound, yet unacounta- 
bly broke off, so that Lane had to get twenty 
or thirty more. And this prisoner being in- 
formed of it, said she told him so before, be- 
cause Pearly helped about them.' 

TRIAL OF MARTHA CARRYER, AUGUST 2, 1692. 

A considerable number of bewitched per- 
sons deposed that it was Martha Carryer or her 
shape, that grievously tormented them by biting, 
pricking, pinching, and choking them ; the 
poor people were so tortured, that every one 
expected their death upon the very spot, but 
that on the binding of the prisoner they were 
eased. Moreover, the looks of Carryer then 
laid the afflicted people for dead ; and her 
touch, if her eyes at the same time were off 
them, raised them again. It was testified, 
that on the mention of some having their necks 
twisted almost round by the shape of this Car- 
ryer, she replied, it 's no matter though their 
necks had been twisted quite off. B. Abbot 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 185 

testified, that the prisoner was very angry with 
him upon laying out some land near her hus- 
band's. She was heard to say she would hold 
Abbot's nose as close to the grindstone as ever 
it was held since his name was Abbot. Pres- 
ently after this, he was taken with a swelling 
in his foot, and then with a pain in his^side, 
and exceedingly tormented. It bred a sore 
which was lanced by Dr Prescott. For six 
weeks it continued very bad, and then another 
sore bred, and finally a third, all which put 
him to very great misery. He was brought to 
death's door, and so remained till Carryer was 
taken and carried away by the constable. 
From which very day he began to mend and 
so grew better every day. Abbot was not only 
afflicted in his body but suffered greatly in the 
loss of his cattle in a strange and unaccount- 
able manner. One A. Toothaker testified, 
that Richard, the son of M. Carryer, having 
some difference with him, pulled him down by 
the hair of his head ; when he rose again he 
was going to strike at Richard, but fell down 
flat on his back to the ground, and had not 
power to stir hand or foot until he told Carryer 
he yielded, and then he saw the shape of his 
12* 



186 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

mother, the prisoner, go off his breast. One 
Foster, who had confessed herself a witch, 
testified, that she had seen the prisoner at some 
of their witch meetings, and that the devil 
carried them on a pole, but the pole broke 
and she hanging about Carryer's neck, they 
both fell down and she received a hurt by the 
fall. Many other evidences of her mischiev- 
ous conduct were produced, which I omit; the 
last was this. In the time of the prisoner's 
trial, one S. Sheldon, in open court, had her 
hands unaccountably tied together with a wheel 
band, so fast, that without cutting, it could not 
be loosened. It was done, says Dr Mather, 
by a spectre, and the sufferer affirmed it was 
the prisoner's. 

There is something in the foregoing proceed- 
ings during the memorable events at Salem, 
that seems to surpass all our conceptions of 
impartial justice, christian charity, or humanity. 
It is humiliating to our nature to reflect, that 
a class of the most profligate wretches were 
brought together on the stage, and their base 
intrigues tolerated and encouraged, fanciful 
experiments witnessed, and little else than fie- 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 187 

titious evidence of accusation received to con- 
demnation ; while all pleadings for mercy, on 
the score of innocence, were of no avail. Not 
a solitary instance is found on record of the 
voice of pity and compassion being raised in 
behalf of the friendless, ignorant victims of 
suspicion. They were subjected to barbarous 
tricks and senseless experiments, calculated to 
encourage fraud and imposition, and then con- 
signed to the gallows for the consequences. 
Better that ten guilty persons escape, than one 
innocent should suffer. Unfortunately, no 
lawyers were at that time employed in criminal 
cases. Kad our present court and our state 
prison been then in existence, the good people 
of Salem would not long have been molested 
by witches and bewitched girls, with their in- 
visible ropes and chains. 

But while we contemplate the melancholy 
errors of judgment in our predecessors, we 
ought in charity to cherish the belief that had 
not their minds been clouded in superstitious 
darkness, their posterity would not have been 
called to mourn over imbecilities so lamentably 
exemplified. But we would attribute to our 
generated fathers no moral corruption, no per- 
J2t 



188 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

verseness of temper, no desire to swerve from 
the dictates of stern justice. Their task was 
most arduous, their path of duty obscured by 
novel occurrences, and their decisions unavoid- 
ably swayed by popular clamor and vulgar 
prejudice. If, unhappily, their intellects were 
tinctured with superstition, it was the effect o f 
early education, fostered and confirmed by 
concurrent sentiment and opinion, propagated 
in books of the heathen and papist. 

Much importance was attached by the mag- 
istrates to the effects of the witches' eyes upon 
the sufferers : but no explanation is given why 
the same eyes could produce no mischievous 
effects on any other person. Great stress was 
laid on the circumstance, that in the trials the 
sufferers were revived from their fits by the 
touch of the hand of the reputed witch, but 
not by the hand of any other person ; but in- 
stances of the contrary can be adduced ; the 
experiment was ordered to be made in a court 
in England ; the afflicted girl's eyes being 
blindfolded, and she being touched by the 
hand of another woman, recovered as speedily 
as if touched by the accused witch. 

The Rev. Dr Increase Mather, then Presi^ 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 189 

dent of Harvard College, may be considered 
as among the best authorities for the prevalent 
doctrines on the subject of witchcraft. On 
the 19th of October, 1692, he went to Salem 
and conferred with eight of the confessing 
witches, all of whom freely and relentingly 
recanted their former confessions, declaring 
that in making them they had violated the 
truth, being compelled to it by pressing threats 
and urgings, by which they were so affrighted 
as to agree to anything that would rescue 
them from their awful situation. But they 
confessed with anguish of soul that they had 
committed a great wickedness for which they 
implored forgiveness. In his ' Cases of Con- 
science/ published in 1693, Dr Mather has 
particular reference to the trials at Salem. In 
this work he observes, that ' the gift of healing 
the sick and possessed, was a special grace 
and favor of God for the confirmation of the 
truth of the gospel, but that such a gift should 
be annexed to the touch of wicked witches, as 
an infallible sign of their guilt is not easy to 
be believed. ' If it be as supposed, by virtue of 
some compact with the devil, that witches have 
power to do such things, those who encourage 
12* 



190 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

them in the practice, whether courts or indi- 
viduals, must be guilty of sacrilege. The ac- 
cusers pretended to suffer much by bites, and 
the prints on the skin would compare precisely 
with the set of teeth of the accused, but those 
who had not such bewitched eyes, have seen 
the accusers bite themselves and then com- 
plain of the accused. It was true, also, that 
some who complained of being pricked by 
pins sticking in their flesh, were their own 
tormentors, for the purpose of effecting their 
wicked designs. The pins thus employed are 
still preserved at Salem. Dr Mather, in the 
work just quoted, judiciously affirms, that the 
evidence in the crime of witchcraft ought to 
be as clear as in any other crimes of a capital 
nature. He is decidedly opposed to the em- 
ployment of spectral evidence as being alone 
sufficient to justify conviction. But he con- 
siders a free and voluntary confession as a 
sufficient ground of conviction ; yet the reve- 
rend author himself cites one remarkable in- 
stance of false confession for the avowed pur- 
pose of effecting her own death in consequence 
of the cruel persecution which she suffered 
from suspicion only, and she w r as burnt at the 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 191 

stake. In most of the instances at Salem, the 
confessions proved false and deceptive, those 
who made them being totally ignorant of the 
nature of witchcraft. Our learned author 
further observes, that if two credible persons 
shall affirm on oath that they have seen the 
person accused, doing things which none but 
such as have familiarity with the devil ever did 
or can do, that is a sufficient ground of convic- 
tion. It was on this ground that he justified 
the condemnation and execution of George 
Burroughs, the minister ; it being testified be- 
fore the court, that he had been seen to lift a 
barrel of molasses or cider, and to extend with 
one hand a heavy musket at arms' length. 
Nothing could be more sophistical than evi- 
dence of this description, for there are persons 
who can lift a solid body of six or seven hun- 
dred pounds, and can extend a king's arm at 
arms' length, when held at the smallest end 
with one hand, and no jury in our day would 
condemn such to the gallows as wizards. 

It is among the most unaccountable facts, 
that those who, to save their lives, belied their 
consciences, and confessed themselves guilty 
of having formed a league with the devil, and 



192 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

of committing horrid crimes, should be spared 
and suffered to live in society, while others, 
relying on their innocence, honestly despised 
those tempting conditions, should be consigned 
to the gallows. In fact, false confessions, 
fraud, and counterfeit, were so palpable, that 
the halter might with more justice have been 
applied to the accusers than to those who ac- 
tually suffered. 

But such, at that time, was the state of the 
public mind, that the more extravagant the 
tale, the more implicitly was it regarded. The 
hostility to witchcraft was so prevalent as to 
give a general bias unfriendly to the fair de- 
velopment of truth, or to the impartial exam- 
ination of facts and circumstances. The un- 
happy victims were without defence, and their 
total ignorance subjected them to the most 
cruel treatment and sufferings. In one in- 
stance on record, there appears to us to'be a 
profanation of the Lord's Prayer. The woman 
being required to repeat it before the court, 
instead of ' deliver us from evil/ expressed it 
* deliver us from all evil ;' this was considered 
as referring to her own condition, and she was 
ordered to repeat it again. On the second trial, 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 193 

instead of ' hallowed be thy name/ she ex- 
pressed ' holloivcd be thy name. 5 Thus by her 
using the 0, in place of «, it was concluded 
that she could not say the Lord's Prayer, and 
she was committed to jail as a witch. 

In Dr Mather's ' Magnalia,' we have the 
following instance of witchcraft. 

In the year 1679, the house of William 
Morse, at Newbury, was infested with demons. 
' Bricks, and sticks, and stones, were often by 
some invisible hand, thrown at the house, and 
so were many pieces of wood ; a cat was 
thrown at the woman of the house, and a long 
staff was danced up and down in the chimney, 
and afterwards the same long staff was hanged 
by a line, and swung to and fro, and when two 
persons laid it on the fire to burn, it was as 
much as they were able to do with their joint 
strength to hold it there. An iron crook was 
violently, by an invisible hand, hurled about, 
and a chair flew about the room until at last it 
lit upon the table, where the food stood ready 
to be eaten, and would have spoiled all, if the 
people had not with much ado saved a little. 
A chest, was by an invisible hand, carried 
from one place to another, and the doors barri- 



194 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

caded ; and the keys of the family taken some 
of them from the bunch where they were tied, 
and the rest flying about with a loud noise . 
For a while the people of the house could not 
sup quietly ; ashes would be thrown into their 
suppers and on their heads The man's shoes 
being left below, one of them would be filled 
with ashes and coals and thrown up after him. 
When in bed a stone, weighing about three 
pounds, was divers times thrown upon them. 
A box and a board were likewise thrown upon 
them, and a bag of hops being taken out of a 
chest, they were by the invisible hand, beaten 
therewith, till some of the hops were scattered 
on the floor, where the bag was then laid and 
left. The man was often struck by that hand, 
with several instruments, and the same hand 
cast their good things into the fire ; yea, while 
the man was at prayer, a broom gave him a 
blow on his head behind and fell down before 
his face, While the man was writing, his ink- 
stand was by the invisible hand snatched from 
him, and being able nowhere to find it, he 
saw it at length drop out of the air down by 
the fire. A shoe was laid on his shoulder, and 
when he would have catched it, it was snatched 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 195 

from him and was then clapped on his head, 
and there held so fast, that the unseen fury 
pulled him with it backward on the floor. He 
had his cap torn off his head, and in the night 
he was pulled by the hair and pinched, and 
scratched ; and the invisible hand pricked him 
with some of his awls ? and with needles, and 
bodkins, and blows that fetched blood were 
sometimes given him. His wife going down 
into the cellar, the trap door was immediately 
by an invisible hand shut upon her, and a table 
brought and laid upon the door. When he 
was writing another time, a dish went and 
leaped into a pail and cast water upon the 
man and spoiled what he was about. His cap 
jumped off his head and on again, and the pot 
lid went off the pot into the kettle, then over 
the fire together. A little boy belonging to the 
family was a principal sufferer, for he was 
flung about at such a rate, that it was feared 
his brains would be beaten out. His bed- 
clothes would be pulled from him, his bed 
shaken, leaping forward and backward. The 
man took him to hold in a chair, but the chair 
fell a dancing, and both of them were very 
near being thrown into the fire. These, and 



196 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

a thousand such vexations, befalling the boy 
at home, they carried him to live at a doctor's. 
There he was quiet, but returning home he 
suddenly cried out he was pricked on the back, 
where was found strangely sticking a three 
tined fork belonging to the doctor, and had 
been seen at his house after the boy's depart- 
ure. Afterwards his troublers found him out 
at the doctor's also, when crying out again he 
was pinched on the back, they found an iron 
spindle stuck into tern ; and on the like outcry 
again, they found pins in a paper stuck into 
him, and a long iron, a bowl of a spoon stuck 
upon him. He was taken out of his bed and 
thrown under it, and all the knives in the house 
were one after another stuck into his back ; 
which the spectators pulled out, only one of 
them seemed to the spectators to come out of 
his mouth. The spectre would make all his 
meat, when he was going to eat, fly out of his 
mouth, and instead thereof make him fall to 
eating ashes, sticks, and yarn.' 

The foregoing has all the air of an exag- 
gerated narrative, and it is probable that Dr 
Mather > in his love for the marvellous and 
wonderful, recorded the circumstances without 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 197 

due examination, but merely from the uncertain 
rumor among the credulous neighbors. The 
same story is found on the records of the court 
at Salem, but with the following explanatory 
circumstances as I have received them. It so 
happened, that one Caleb Powell, an intelli- 
gent seaman, suspected that a boy, the grand- 
son of Morse, who Jived in the family, was the 
cause of all the mischief, and watched for an 
opportunity of detecting him. Going one 
morning to Morse's house, he saw through the 
window, the said boy throw a shoe slyly at the 
old man's head. Upon this, Powell told Morse 
that if he would let his boy come and live with 
him a short time, he guessed that with a little 
astrology and a little astronomy, he could un- 
ravel the mystery. Morse reluctantly con- 
sented, and his house was not molested during 
the boy's absence. This, Morse acknowledged, 
but yet, unwilling to suspect the boy, he and 
his neighbors concluded that Powell had stud- 
ied the black art, and had by that means been 
the cause of all the mischief about Morse's 
house. Powell was accordingly apprehended 
and tried at Salem. The testimony against 
him was singular. One testified, that he had 



198 SALEM WITCHCRAFT, 

heard him say that by a little astrology and a 
little astronomy, he guessed he could find out 
the cause of Morse's trouble. Another testi- 
fied, that he heard it said that Powell had 
studied the black art with one Norwood, a 
famous magician beyond sea. The result of 
the trial was, that although they could find no 
positive evidence of his guilt, yet he had given 
so much ground for suspicion, that he deserved 
to bear his own shame and the costs of court. 
Morse's wife was at another time tried for 
witchcraft, and condemned to be hung, but 
was afterwards reprieved, and died a pious 
woman. 

The following is an amusing story, well told, 
but it is from newspaper authority, the Galaxy. 
About the year 1760, the fury of the inhabi- 
tants of New England had declined towards 
suspected old women, but their believing fear 
was not altogether quelled. At this time, a 
case of witchcraft occurred in Billerica, under 
the ministry of the Rev. Dr Cummings, who 
related the story with much satisfaction, as the 
last which came within his precincts. 

An old woman, of very peaceable character, 
lived pretty much alone in a shell of a house 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT, 199 

near the meeting-house and the clergyman's 
dwelling. She w r as suspected of witchcraft by 
a family who lived at two miles' distance, in 
the west part of the town, and they brought 
accusation immediately to the parson ; who in 
those early times, exercised not only the spi- 
ritual, but the temporal power of the parish j he 
was often counsel for both parties, and was 
judge and jury, without subjection to appeal. 
He was, moreover, a peace-maker. Mr C. 
accused Mrs D. of witchcraft. ' How do you 
know she is a witch V ' Because she has be- 
witched my mare.' ' How do you know that 
your mare is bewitched V ' Because she won't 
stand still to be saddled, and the minute I get 
on, she kicks up and throws me off.' ' But 
what makes you think that Mrs D. has be- 
witched her V No answer. ' Have you had 
a quarrel with her V ' Oh no ! I have had no 
quarrel.' ' But what is the matter ? surely 
she would not bewitch her for nothing.' ' Why 
I carried her some corn on the mare about a 
week ago, and I didn't know but I might have 
made a mistake in the measure so that it fell 
short, and so ' — ' And because your corn fell 
short, you suspect that she found it out, and is 
13 



200 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

so angry as to bewitch your mare.' ' Yes, 
that's it, and I want you to go and lay the 
devil/ ' Why, if you have raised the devil by 
cheating in the corn, you had better lay him 
yourself.' ' Yes, but I don't know how. 5 ' Go 
then, directly, and carry the balance of the 
corn, and take good care never to commit such 
an act again : the devil is always busy with 
people who do not perform all their duties 
honestly.' The man slunk away home at this 
unexpected rebuke, and failed not to carry corn 
enough to make full measure ; which, however, 
he feared to carry into the house to the old 
woman, but emptied it down upon the door- 
stone. But the mare ceased to kick as usual ; 
whereupon Mr C. came to the minister, told 
him what he had done, and begged for holy 
assistance. ' Go home/ said the parson, with 
all that energy for which he was so remarkable, 
i go home, — you need not trouble yourself 
about witches ; I'll not allow them to do any 
mischief, I assure you — do your duty, so as 
to escape a guilty conscience, and if your mare 
is refractory, whip her, as I do mine — go, 
and let me hear no more about witches.' Mr 
C. obeyed, but he was far from convinced that 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 201 

Mrs D. was not a witch, and he determined to 
put it to the proof. For this purpose he boiled 
a large potato, which he put directly from the 
boiling water, under the bewitched mare's 
saddle. The caperings and kickings of the 
poor beast were excusable this time, at least, 
for when after some hours the saddle was got 
off, it was found that a severe mark was left 
behind it. The proof of the matter was to be 
this ; if the old woman had bewitched the 
mare, she would have the same mark of a burn 
on her back. Two old women were prevailed 
on to be of the examining committee. Dr 
Cummings was requested to be of the party, 
with his Bible at hand, to prevent any fatal 
explosion from Satan's nostrils. This office 
he prudently declined. His place was supplied 
by another old women, and Saturday night 
was appointed for this examination. This time 
was chosen, because the good people thought 
that Satan would not visit in holy hours. In 
the meantime, the good woman got an ink- 
ling of what was going on ; and as they en- 
tered a long dark entry, they were saluted with 
a stupendous flash of powder and tow, and a 
t glorious clatter of tin pans. The committee 



202 SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

was scattered of course — and before church 
the next day, everybody in the town knew, 
that the devil came, all covered with blue brim- 
stone, to save his disciple, the wicked Mrs D, 
This would have made a new era in witchcraft 
in the town, but for the pertinent remarks of 
the parson touching the matter; for he was 
enabled to dispense a word in season. 

It is but a few years since, a farmer at Ken- 
nebunk, observing his cattle to be affected with 
some fatal disease, conceived the idea that 
they were bewitched, and fixed his suspicion 
on a poor widow who had become insane in 
consequence of the death of her husband at 
sea. He was so confident of her guilt, that 
he went to her lonely cottage, and with his ox 
goad, beat and abused her in a cruel manner. 
It is not under our salutary laws that a crime 
so atrocious can pass with impunity. The 
culprit was prosecuted and received the merit- 
ed punishment. 

The family of M'Farlain, of. Pembroke, 
were remarkable for peculiarity of character 
and manners. About the year 1789, Seth 
M'Farlain attracted the notice of the neigh- 
borhood by being supposed to be under the 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 203 

influence of witchcraft. He became an object 
of wonder and commiseration to some, and 
of curiosity and ridicule to others. Hundreds 
of people thronged round his house from time 
to time, gazing with astonishment at his sup- 
posed personal sufferings ; inflicted, as he 
pretended, by a certain old hag in the neigh- 
borhood. He was desired to visit the woman 
at her house, but before he could reach the 
door, his limbs would fail him, and he would 
fall to the ground. His body was occasionally 
distorted and convulsed, he would utter the 
bitterest complaints of pain and distress, which 
he ascribed to the presence of the hag, although 
she was invisible to all but himself. He con- 
sulted Judge T — r, to know whether he would 
be culpable in law if he should kill a witch. 
The Judge observing Seth on the bed with a 
club, swinging his arms to and fro, to keep off 
the witch, was willing to humor the whim, 
and procured a gun, and loading it with some 
pieces of silver, enjoined on Seth to take a 
sure aim when the witch again made her ap- 
pearance. Accordingly, Seth pointed the gun 
to the door where she usually entered, and 
hung up her bonnet, and at the proper time 
18* 



204 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

he discharged his piece. The discharge shat- 
tered the door in pieces, but the cunning 
witch dodged her head at the moment he 
pulled the trigger ! t 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

In ancient times, especially among the 
Greeks and Romans, omens and auguries 
were considered as of great importance in the 
common concerns of life ; but having their 
origin in ignorance and superstition, they van- 
ished before the light of philosophy and wis- 
dom. But so late as the first part of the last 
century, the belief in fairies, hobgoblins, 
witches, and omens, prevailed almost univer- 
sally among the superstitious part of the com- 
munity ; and even some of superior rank and 
condition in life, were under the influence of 
these chimerical fancies. 

The following were among the lucky and 
unlucky omens. 

The flight of singing birds, or the manner 
of feeding of birds and chickens, portended 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 205 



good or evil, according to particular circum- 
stances. The act of sneezing was ominous 
of good or evil, according to the number at the 
time, or the place. If, when a servant is 
making a bed, she happens to sneeze, no per- 
son can sleep in it undisturbed, unless a part 
of the straw or feathers be taken out and burnt. 
Nothing could insure success to a person going 
on important business, more effectually than 
to throw an old shoe after him on leaving the 
house. If there be in company thirteen per- 
sons, the devil's dozen, some misfortune will 
befall one of them. To spill salt, at table, is 
very ominous, and the ticking of the small in- 
sect called a death-watch, foretels death, and 
the screech-owl at midnight, some terrible 
misfortune. These, and many other silly 
fancies, have been keenly satirized by Addison, 
in the Spectator. To find a horse-shoe was 
deemed lucky, more especially, if it be preserv- 
ed and nailed on the door, as this prevents the 
annoyance of witches. This, probably, was 
the origin of the practice continued in our 
times, of nailing horse shoes on the masts of 
vessels, against the enchantment of witches. 
The omens are extended to particular days in 
I3f 



206 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

the week. Friday, for instance, is considered 
an inauspicious day for the commencement of 
any undertaking. It is seldom that a seaman 
can be prevailed on to commence a voyage on 
that day. An account has been published of 
some person, who, desirous of eradicating this 
prejudice, ordered the timber of his vessel to 
be cut on Friday; her foundation laid, her 
launching, and the engaging her crew, on 
Friday, and finally he ordered her to sail on 
Friday. But it was remarkable and unfortu- 
nate, that neither the vessel nor crew wore ever 
heard from afterwards. This, however, is no 
proof that Friday is more likely to produce 
disasters than any other day in the seven. 
We know that all events are under the control 
of Divine Providence, and it is inconsistent 
with reason to imagine, that fatality will attend 
undertakings because they were commenced 
on any one particular day. 

That singular genius, Lord Byron, was 
among those who indulged the superstitious 
notion, that Friday is an unlucky day. In 
Moore's Life of Byron, may be found the fol- 
lowing. 

( Among the superstitions in which he chose 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 207 

to indulge, the supposed unluckiness of Friday, 
as a day for the commencement of any work, 
was one by which he almost always allowed 
himself to be influenced. Soon after his ar- 
rival at Pisa, a lady of his acquaintance hap- 
pening to meet him on the road from her 
Tiouse, as she was herself returning thither, 
and supposing "that he had been to make her 
a visit, requested that he would go back with 
her. " I have not been to your house/' he 
answered ; " for just before I got to the door I 
remembered that it was Friday ; and not liking 
to make my first visit on a Friday, I turned 
back." It is even related of him, that he once 
sent away a Genoese tailor, who brought him 
home a new coat on the same ominous day. 
With all this, strange to say, he set sail for 
Greece on a Friday ; and, though by those 
who have any leaning to this superstitious 
fancy, the result may be thought but too sadly 
confirmatory of the omen, it is plain, that 
either the influence of superstition over his 
own mind was slight, or, in the excitement of 
self devotion under which he now acted, was 
forgotten.' 

In Lord Byren, we have an example of the 
13| 



208 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

fatal consequences which sometimes ensue 
from prejudices against any particular purpose 
or object, being instilled into the youthful mind. 
Of all his prejudices, he declared the strongest 
was that against bleeding. His mother had on 
her death bed obtained from him a promise 
never to consent to being bled. When on his 
own death bed, therefore, he pertinaciously 
opposed the operation, contrary to the united 
and earnest entreaties of his physicians, and 
it was delayed till too late to afford him the 
desired relief. 

History furnishes one signal instance of a 
successful enterprise commenced on Friday. 
It was on that day that Christopher Columbus 
sailed from the port of Palos on his first voyage 
of discovery ; and it was on Friday that he 
landed on an island never before seen by 
European eyes. Of all events recorded in 
modern history, this is incomparably the most 
important. 

A curious and melancholy instance of aber- 
ration of intellect, occurred on board the ship 
President, on her outward bound passage to 
Charleston. She encountered very heavy 
weather, and one of the sailors stated to his 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 209 

shipmates that he was convinced the storm 
had arisen entirely in consequence of his 
wicked course of life, and that the offended 
majesty of heaven could only be appeased by 
his immediately precipitating himself into the 
sea. In vain was every argument urged, and 
every endeavor made, on the part of the cap- 
tain and his officers, to induce him to relinquish 
his purpose. One evening he ascended the 
main rigging, and putting off a part of his 
attire, threw himself headlong into the deep. 
When the ship was returning to this city, a 
storm of considerable violence arose, which 
called forth all the superstition of the mariners, 
and a cry became universal that she would go 
down unless ' Sam's ' chest was thrown over- 
board. A Scotchman was among the most 
bigoted portion of the crew, and having more 
dread of the elements than the captain, he, 
by some means or other, procured the chest of 
poor ' Sam,' and entombed it in the grave of 
its owner. The storm almost immediately 
abated ; calmness reigned upon the face of the 
waters, and a fine breeze wafted them to the 
mouth of the harbor. Here, however, the 
wind became unpropitious, and a squall from 



210 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

the land drove them off. Discontent again 
manifested its influence, and a general search 
took place to ascertain whether anything be- 
longing to the suicide remained. After the 
forecastle had been duly searched, an old shoe 
^vas discovered, and hastily yielded up as a 
sacrifice to Eolus. The wind again subsided, 
and a fair breeze brought them into port ; the 
whole scene without doubt, confirming their 
minds in the superstition they had cherish- 
ed. — N. Y. J. of Commerce. 

On board of a ship, Capt V. master, it be- 
came necessary in the night, to reef the top- 
sails ; the sails were lowered, and the reef 
tackle hauled out, when the sailors ascended 
the mast ; but to the surprise of the captain, 
they soon came down in great terror, crying 
out that the devil was in the top, they knew 
him by his horns, flashing eyes, and grisly 
beard. No commands or threats from the 
captain could avail, to induce them to make 
another attempt. All other orders they were 
willing to obey, but to encounter the devil on 
the topmast was too much. The affair began 
to grow serious, for the topsail was quivering 
and shivering in the wind. The captain and 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 211 

officers resolved with courage to ascend, but 
they, too, were driven in terror to the deck. 
It was now agreed, be their fate what it may, 
to wait till the morning ; when by daylight it 
was discovered, that an old goat was seated on 
the top, with its glaring eyes staring the sea- 
men in the face. It appeared that the goat 
was sleeping on the halliards while coiled in a 
tub, and was by that means hoisted up to the 
top without the knowledge of any one. 

The Roman Catholics have been educated 
in the full persuasion that the devil appears in 
bodily form, and often in the high style of some 
great personage. I have more than once lis- 
tened to an honest Irish Catholic while gravely 
relating the manner in which Satan appeared 
on horseback with a splendid retinue, and 
took possession of a gentleman's palace in Ire- 
land, after the massacre of the Romish priests. 
His majesty having taken possession of the 
palace, a Protestant minister was sent to drive 
him to his own abode, but he was received 
with a laugh and sneer, as possessing no pow- 
er. But at length a Catholic priest, who had 
been secreted in a cavern during the massacre, 
was sent, and he no sooner entered than the 



21*2 OMENS AN© AUGURIES. « 

devil in a fright, flew up the chimney, carrying 
an iron pot from over the fire, and in passing 
out carrying off the top of the chimney. The 
Irishman entertained not the least doubt of the 
reality of the transaction ; and added that the 
chimney still remains in the same state, no one 
daring to mend it. 

Some old seamen admire to be considered 
as being on familiar terms with the devil. The 
following story has often been related by sailors 
in the full belief of its truth. 

A sailor sold himself to the devil, on condi- 
tion that he should enjoy all the good things 
and pleasures of this life for fifty years, when 
he would give himself up • but the devil was 
to perform any one thing which the sailor 
might desire before he surrendered. At the 
expiration of fifty years, Satan came for his 
man. The sailor acknowledged that the time 
had expired, but one thing was to be done. 
Satan was required to pump the sea dry, but 
the cunning son of Neptune had so placed the 
pump that the water from it flowed directly in- 
to the sea again. The devil was so enraged 
at this cunning artifice, that he gave him a 
tremendous blow with his tail and vanished in 
n cloud of smoke and brimstone. 



OMEN? AND AUGURIES. 213 

/ 

The Reformation of the 16th century, al- 
though it in a great measure broke the shac- 
kles which bound the human intellect, and 
taught men to think, did not altogether eradi- 
cate heathen and popish absurdities, even from 
the reformers themselves. What, but a spirit 
of bigotry, could influence the great mind of 
Martin Luther gravely to declare that he ex- 
perienced several personal encounters with the 
devil, in consequence of his being engaged in 
reforming the abuses of the Catholic Church, 
and particularly that his ' Satanic majesty en- 
tered his bolted chamber one night, stole his 
hazel nuts, and cracked them on his bed-post, 
to his no small annoyance V 

The Rev. Mr Whitman, in his ingenious 
lecture on Popular Superstition, relates, that 
' Not many years ago, a man was suddenly 
missing from a certain town in this common- 
wealth. The church immediately sent one of 
her members to consult the far-famed fortune- 
teller, Molly Pitcher. After making the ne- 
cessary inquiries, she intimated that the absent 
person had been murdered by a family of ne- 
groes, and his body sunk in the deep waters 
behind their, dwelling. Upon this evidence^ 



214 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

the accused were forthwith imprisoned, and 
the pond raked in vain from shore to shore. 
A few days previous to the trial, the murdered 
man returned to his friends safe and sound/ 
The church would have done themselves more 
credit, had they taken the legal means for the 
punishment of the fortune-teller in the peni- 
tentiary for defamation. 

I cannot omit to communicate the following 
excellent remarks in the language of my amia- 
ble and learned friend and correspondent, 
Thomas Miner, M. D. of Middletown, Conn. 

' That demons could ever work miracles, 
seems to be incredible ; but mind as well as 
matter was evidently subject to different laws 
anciently, from what they are at present. 
This principle may perhaps help to a satisfac- 
tory solution of many things otherwise involved 
in inextricable perplexity in the Scriptures. 
God never violated, and can never violate, 
known laws, but he can change them at 
pleasure. Every geologist knows he has 
changed them since the creation, for by no 
law now existing, can we account for the or- 
ganic remains of tropical animals, and plant3 
in arctic and temperate regions. There have, 



OMENS AND AUGURIES, 



215 



therefore, been miracles, or variations, or sus- 
pensions, or additions, to the common laws of 
nature, as respects the physical world. Science 
teaches this, particularly geology, and this 
cuts, or rather unties, the gordian knot in the 
material world. The analogy is complete in 
the world of mind ; at least, revelation informs 
us that the ordinary laws of mind, and of mat- 
ter too, have been occasionally varied, sus- 
pended, or have had supplementary additions, 
as is the fact in all the miracles recorded in 
Scripture. If Hume had only been a modern 
geologist, he would have seen the futility of his 
reasoning against the possibility of miracles, 
for he would have had facts staring him in the 
face, demonstrating that matter had at times 
been governed by laws very different in kind 
or in degree, or in both, from any that are now 
known to exist. Analogy shows that this may 
have been the case with mind ; Scripture says 
it has been. 

' I must confess, I am very cautious in ex- 
plaining away ' a single miraculous event re- 
corded in the Scriptures, since if I begin I 
know not where to stop ; but if I only admit 
this principle, that though the general laws of 



216 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

matter and mind have always been the same, 
yet the Creator has frequently, for great and 
wise purposes, deviated from them himself, 
and permitted, or authorized, or empowered 
others, sometimes, on important occasions, to 
deviate from them, (as we know has been the 
fact in the material world) nearly every diffi- 
culty in the interpretation of the marvellous 
part of revelation, at once becomes of easy 
solution. Perhaps it/may be objected that this 
does not solve the difficulty concerning the 
miraculous agency of bad men or other de- 
praved beings. But revelation does mention 
cases of bad men prophesying, working mira- 
cles, and performing other wonders, whom the 
Saviour never knew. True science, where- 
ever it is properly applied, must destroy super- 
stition and fanaticism, but as is the case with 
geology, showing that miracles or changes of 
the laws of nature have existed, it serves to 
support real religion, and demonstrates the im- 
moveable basis on which it is founded. Phi- 
losophy shows that miracles have existed, rev- 
elation records the time, place, and occasion. 
After all, I would speak with great caution 
concerning the ancient demoniacs, whatever 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 217 

side of the question we take, much remains 
that is mysterious and perhaps incomprehensi- 
ble by our present imperfect faculties. 

* In most points of view, we live in the best 
age the world ever saw ; but we live in an age 
of excitement. Every, almost every project, 
is begun and pursued with enthusiasm. The 
difficulty is to keep from running into complete 
fanaticism. Mere duty or expediency, howev- 
er, is a cold thing, and never alone does much, 
unless it is attended with some zeal, some ar- 
dor, some earnestness of feeling. These latter 
emotions should resemble the steady, but gen- 
tle breeze ; but passion, especially, when pro- 
tracted into fanaticism, is like the hurricane 
and tornado. I know of no way to insure the 
golden mean with any prospect of success, ex- 
cept by giving the rising generation a stable 
education, founded upon the sure basis of the 
morality and religion of the gospel. The 
sermon on the mount contains the best rules 
of duty, and the thirteenth chapter of the first 
Corinthians, the best exposition of them, any- 
where to be found. The great law of love, 
enforcing a disposition to do to others as we 
would wish them to do to us, is practically 
14 



218 OMENS AND AUGURIES, 

exemplified in the charity which is so much 
insisted on by Paul.' 

It is incumbent upon us as patriots and phi- 
lanthropists, as far as in our power, to guard 
the rising generation against every species of 
superstition, by a strong bulwark laid deep 
and early in the minds of our children. It is 
our children that are to be entrusted with our 
character, our acquirements, and our senti- 
ments ; whether fraught with pure wisdom, or 
tinctured with brain-sick infirmities, future 
generations will know how to appreciate their 
worth. If we wish posterity to enjoy true and 
permanent happiness, let them be taught to 
cultivate their intellectual powers, and fortify 
their minds against deceptive illusions and im- 
aginary evils. Spectral illusions may be expe- 
rienced while the intellectual faculties remain 
entire, as is exemplified in the cases of Nicolai 
and the Scottish lady, related in a former 
part of this work. The celebrated Dr 
Samuel Johnson, was prone to superstition, 
and occasionally afflicted with paroxysms of 
hypochondriacal illusions. He relates, that as 
he was one day at Oxford, turning the key of 
his chamber, he heard hig mother (who was at 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 219 

1 Litchfield) distinctly calling * Sam.' From 
which he had wrought up his mind to expect 
the most woful tidings of his beloved parent, 
but was entirely and happily disappointe 

Let our youth be taught that the-^ whole 
phalanx of ghosts, apparitions, witches and 
wizards, charms and enchantments, second 
sight, omens and auguries, astrology and for- 
tune telling, vulgar miracles, and vulgar pro- 
phecies, should be classed with other vulgar- 
isms, the legitimate offspring of perverted im- 
aginations, and ought to be reprobated as de- 
grading to the human understanding. Those 
who disdain to believe in their existence, will 
never be molested by them. ' Resist the devil 
and he will flee from you.' Firmly resist a 
belief in witchcraft, and you may bid defiance 
to all the witches that ever traversed the air or 
haunted a dwelling. 

Strongly impress on the minds of our youth, 
that superstition and bigotry are derogatory to 
the cause of genuine religion, giving counte- 
nance to inadequate conceptions of the deity, 
illiberality, and uncharitableness, religious 
frenzy, tumultuous excitements, fanatical dis- 
quietudes, unreal or doubtful conversions, mo- 



220 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

lancholy, gloom, and despair. These evil re- 
sults are diametrically opposed to that honora- 
ble and happy character which the christian 
religion is so admirably calculated to form and 
sustain. 

We may confer great benefit on our youth, 
by directing them to a proper course of reading. 
In a library, without advice, they are in the 
condition of a stranger in a city without a 
guide. The world is almost inundated with 
books ; a choice may be made to answer every 
requirement and to suit every genius and taste. 

Popular education has now become almost 
universally a darling pursuit. Seminaries of 
learning and improved school institutions, are 
extending more and more, and will soon be 
diffused throughout the land, and their bene- 
fits equally enjoyed by all classes of our youth. 
Numerous Lyceums have, within these last 
few years, been established in New England, 
and the public voice bespeaks an abundant in- 
crease in their numbers ; they abound in the 
best means to excite emulation and diffuse 
general knowledge. It is auspicious to the 
public welfare when our citizens are wise, and 
sober minded, patriotic, chaste, and virtuous, 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 221 

appreciating the free institutions of our fathers, 
as rich boons from heaven, and the freedom of 
mind as of inestimable value. The avenues 
which lead to the fountains of honor and in- 
telligence are as wide and easy of access as 
those which overwhelm in vice and misery, 
and those who prefer the former need not pass 
through life unacquainted with the mighty 
wonders which the world contains. 

It is with regret, that, in * A Dictionary of 
important names, objects, and terms found in 
the holy Scriptures, intended principally for 
youth,' recently published by Howard Malcolm, 
A. M., the following definition is found. 

1 Witch is a woman and Wizard is a man 
that is supposed to have dealings with Satan, 
if not actually entered into formal compact 
with him. That such persons are among men 
is abundantly plain from Scripture ; and that 
they ought to be put to death. ' 

It can scarcely be believed that this can be 
intended as an item in the code of instruction 
for the rising generation in the 19th century. 
Our children, it is presumed, have, in these 
enlightened times, been taught lessons better 
calculated to instil into their tender minds the 
14* 



222 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

principles of moral wisdom and philanthropy. 
The author has not favored the public with 
the rules and signs by which witches and wiz- 
ards are to be designated, and the evidence by 
which they are to be convicted. Had he lived 
in witch-hanging times, he might have wit- 
nessed w r ith what sang-froid ghosts and spec- 
tres could consign witches and wizards to the 
gallows. Has the author been so fortunate as 
to ascertain whether the sin of witchcraft, as 
understood in modern times, is actually de- 
nounced as punishable in the holy Scriptures ? 
In all countries, improvements in literature 
and the arts and sciences, have been impeded, 
not only by superstition and bigotry among 
the ignorant, but by the absurd edicts of sove- 
reigns and legislators, as if to bid defiance to 
all the energies of progressive knowledge. In 
the 16th century, the Emperor Charles V. of 
Spain, although himself addicted to crimes of 
the blackest stain, ordered an assembly of 
divines to deliberate, whether it were lawful in 
point of conscience to dissect a dead body. 
During the prevalence of a malignant fever in 
Barcelona, the court of Madrid wrote the pre- 
scription to be used, and by command of his 



OMENS AND AUGURIES. 223 

Catholic Majesty, the physicians were ordered 
to adhere to it in all cases, and forbidden to 
prescribe any other remedy. 

In the days of bitter intolerance, Servetus, 
a learned Spanish physician, discovered the 
course of the blood through the lungs, called 
the lesser circulation ; and was afterwards 
cruelly burnt at the stake, with his books, in 
consequence of a religious controversy with 
John Calvin. 

The immortal Harvey, who, in 1628, was 
the author of the most important discovery re- 
corded in medical history, the circulation of 
the blood, was subjected to base calumny and 
detraction, while bestowing blessings on the 
world, by his noble efforts and pious example. 
* It was, I believe/ says Lady Morgan, * late 
in the last century, that Baron de Luch was 
executed at Turin, for having published that 
the earth moves round the sun.' The Cheva- 
lier La Barre, a minor, was executed in France 
for an imputed insult offered to the crucifix. 

But, God be praised, the rack of torture 

and the lighted fagot never have disgraced 

our native country ; nor are these horrid en* 

gines any longer in requisition to punish imag- 

]4f 



224 OMENS AND AUGURIES. 

inary crimes and to repress truth and philo- 
sophical research. 

A pious friend and patron of the present 
writer, dying in the year 1787, without heirs, 
bequeathed by will" his whole estate, except 
some legacies, to thirteen Congregational So- 
cieties in the county in which he lived ; the 
interest of which was to be appropriated, an- 
nually, for one hundred years, to the purchase 
of certain specified religious books, to be dis- 
tributed among the said Societies. After the 
expiration of one hundred years, other relig- 
ious books might be selected by the existing 
ministers, except, that one year in every four, 
the books first mentioned only should be pur- 
chased. In less than twenty years, the speci- 
fied books becoming obsolete, new editions 
were required to be printed for that particular 
purpose only, which occasioned great ex- 
pense. The Societies interested became dis- 
satisfied with their restriction to books which 
were constantly superseded by more recent 
publications, keeping pace with progressive 
improvement. They all united in a petition 
to the legislature that the will might be abol- 
ished, which was granted, and the estate sold 



MEDICAL QUACKERY. 225 

and the proceeds divided among the several 
Societies concerned. 

Change and decay are stamped in indelible 
characters upon the proudest productions of 
man ; all bequests on illiberal conditions and 
human creeds to which men may cling as in- 
fallibfe, can be considered as commensurate 
only with all earthly objects based on no per- 
manent foundation. 



MEDICAL QUACKERY. 

There may be no impropriety in adding a 
few pages on the subject of Medical Quack- 
ery and empiricism, since, for more than half a 
century, the writer has occasionally witnessed 
melancholy scenes and disasters among his 
fellow-men in consequence of their nefarious 
practice. It is a matter of congratulation, 
that from the liberal and excellent provisions 
made by our legislatures, and the most ample 
means of education which our institutions af- 
ford, every candidate for medical fame may 
become completely qualified for its attainment. 
14$ 



226 MEDICAL QUACKERY. 

And every town or parish may be supplied with 
scientific physicians, meriting the confidence 
of the people ; and no other should ever be 
employed or encouraged, as they have peculiar 
claim to public patronage. 

Notwithstanding that in all the medical in- 
stitutions in the United States, the most judi- 
cious and energetic measures have been adopt- 
ed to prevent the evils of quackery, there are 
ignorant and unprincipled impostors, who set 
at defiance all learning and theoretical know- 
ledge, and practise the vilest acts and decep- 
tions, sporting with the health and lives of their 
fellow-men without remorse. Such miscreants 
are too frequently encouraged by the heedless 
multitude, who, delighting in marvellous and 
magical airs, readily yield themselves dupes to 
the grossest absurdities. From one of this 
character we have the following anecdote. 

An old acquaintance who knew well the 
character of a celebrated empiric, said to him, 
while standing at the door, ' Prithee, doctor, 
how is it that you, whose origin I so well know, 
should have been able to obtain more practice 
than almost all the regular bred physicians.' 
'Pray/ says the quack, 'how many persons 



MEDI6AL QUACKERY. 227 

have passed us while you put the question V 
' About twenty. 5 ' And pray how many of 
them do you suppose possess a competent 
share of common sense V ' Perhaps one out 
of the twenty. 5 ' Just so/ says the doctor, 
' and that one applies to the regular physician, 
while I and my brethren pick up the other 
nineteen.' 

And how often have we seen the contempti- 
ble ignoramus raised by the voice of popularity 
above the level of the learned and accomplish- 
ed physician, and boasting of nineteen twen- 
tieths of the practice ? It is not unfrequent 
that our attention is arrested by the pretensions 
of prophets and mystical fanatics, who an- 
nounce their pretended heavenly mission, and 
treat their credulous patients with bubbles and 
magical spells. The stranger, called the rain- 
water doctor, after gulling hundreds of people 
of weak minds a few years since, disappeared, 
leaving both his origin and his exit involved in 
mystery. But the most audacious impostor 
that was ever suffered to delude even the vul- 
gar, was one Austin, of Vermont, who, a few 
years since, proclaimed himself a prophet, and 
pretended to cure all diseases by prayer^to 



228 MEDICAL QUACKERY. 

heaven, requiring no other information relative 
to the patient, than a few lines requesting his 
prayers. Such was the credulity and such the 
faith of the multitude, that letters and messen- 
gers were despatched to him from the sick, the 
blind, and the crippled, from the distance of 
several hundred miles, until thousands had ac- 
cumulated on his hands. A certain poor man 
whom I knew, became so infatuated with the 
prophet's proclamation, that, after collecting 
letters from a number of invalids, of all de- 
scriptions, among whom was one totally blind, 
and having received contributions in money, 
actually performed a journey of about two 
hundred miles to receive the benefit of the 
prophet's prayers. But he soon returned as he 
went, and gained for his credulous employers 
and himself no other benefit than a conviction 
of their folly, and the vile imposition of modern 
prophets. The two jugglers above mentioned, 
it is presumed, jeoparded no lives by the use of 
poisonous materials, as they depended on the 
operation of the imagination ; but there are 
bolder champions of the craft who can pop 
you off the stage in a moment. The country 
is annoyed by a train of unprincipled ignora- 



MEDICAL QUACKERY. 229 

muses, without reputation, who are prowling 
about, brandishing the sure weapons of death, 
reckless of consequences. But their punish- 
ment is reserved to the day of retributive jus- 
tice. I well recollect the following moral les- 
son of a pious physician. ' If a patient die 
through your wilful ignorance, rashness, or 
careless neglect, his blood will be required at 
your hands. 5 How much greater, then, must 
be the accountability in those who administer 
the most active and even poisonous materials, 
without the smallest acquaintance with the 
human constitution or the nature of the medi- 
cine. It is characteristic of these people, to 
undertake to cure incurables, magnifying a 
wart to a rose cancer, a simple ulcer to a 
spreading mortification, and to set bones where 
there is neither joint nor fracture. Although 
palpable instances of death from their practice 
are frequent, should a single cure happen, it is 
proclaimed as almost miraculous, and the law- 
less miscreants are still suffered to seek their 
prey with impunity, and no one tells of their 
thousand victims concealed in the silent grave ! 
It is from a similar empirical source, that 
the public is annoyed by a disgusting display 



230 MEDICAL QUACKERY. 

of quack and patent medicines; which, through 
the medium of newspapers, are impudently 
palmed upon public attention. It would seem 
as though a host of ignorant impostors have 
leagued in hostility against the profession of 
medicine, wishing to despoil it of its dignity 
and usefulness, and prostrate its character in 
the dust. The world is inundated with nos- 
trums, usurping the power, not only to remedy 
all the diseases of our nature, but actually to 
fortify the human constitution, and render it 
invulnerable. In their ostentatious display, 
they extol a single nostrum as adequate to the 
prevention and cure of a whole catalogue of 
diseases, however opposite or discordant in 
their nature. They are suited to all constitu- 
tions, as the shoe-black's composition is appli- 
cable to every oneh boots or shoes. Thus are 
we kindly invited, at the expense of a few 
dollars, to purchase of those self ' dubbed 
doctors/ that health and longevity which even 
the judicious hand of science is unable to be- 
stow. The inventors and venders of these 
pretended specifics, in most instances, have no 
knowledge of the diseases which they pretend 
to cure ; they depend, as it were, on a random 



MEDICAL QUACKERY. 231 

shot, and whatever may be the issue, they are 
sure of their enormous gains, from two to four 
hundred per cent ; articles sold for a dollar 
might be afforded for ten cents. 

By such fraud and imposition, a noted 
Charlatan in London accumulated such an 
immense fortune as to parade the streets in a 
splendid equipage, the effects of public credu- 
lity. But the public may be assured, that 
since the great improvements in chemical 
science, a large proportion of patent medicines 
have been analyzed, and are found to consist 
of old articles which physicians have expunged 
from their materia medica, to give place to 
more valuable and efficacious remedies. Here, 
then, is a boundless source of knavery and 
fraud, — but I desire to have it understood, 
that these observations are not to extend to all 
patentees of medical compositions, without 
exception, for all are not equally censurable. 
Few, indeed, there are, which scientific physi- 
cians are willing to concede may be of public 
utility. But that indiscriminate application in 
all cases and circumstances, should be most 
pointedly reprobated. Were the annual amount 
of money expended for useless nostrums made 



232 MEDICAL QUACKERY. 

public, it would excite astonishment, and were 
the innumerable disappointments in their crea- 
tive powers promulgated, public indignation 
and contempt would be the portion of the in- 
ventors and venders of patented nostrums. 

There is not a more provoking absurdity, as 
applied to the economy of health, than the 
idea of spring medicines, family medicines, fyc, 
and it should be distinctly understood by every 
individual, that such medicine administered to 
persons in health, as preventive of disease, as 
well as those administered without a skilful re- 
ference to the present condition of the system, 
are absolutely dangeious to health and life. 
And the same observation will apply to the 
practice of blood-letting in the spring season. 

Those who maintain the ridiculous idea that 
individuals are endowed with supernatural 
gifts and knowledge, and become skilful physi- 
cians without education or study, betray a piti- 
ful credulity, equalled only by the conceits of 
those who believe in ghosts and spectres, haunt- 
ing the dwellings of the dead. We now wit- 
ness with the deepest interest, the rapid strides 
in the march of intellect, keeping pace with 
the advance of light and truth, looking for 



MEDICAL QUACKERY. 233 

that political and moral millenium, when know- 
ledge will be more sought for than wealth, and 
the charms of virtue more prized than those 
of vice ; when prejudice, superstition, and li- 
centiousness, will be discountenanced among 
all classes of mankind, and righteousness shall 
exalt our nation. 

Truly ( the lines have fallen to us in pleas- 
ant places, and we have a goodly heritage.' 
But it were unjust to look back to antiquity 
and compare the beauties of the present day 
with the deformities of ancient times ; to at- 
tribute exclusive perfection to ourselves and 
deprive our ancestors of their real worth and 
merit; for we know not the period among 
them when wisdom and virtue were lightly es- 
teemed. Let us reflect, with religious gratitude, 
on the momentous privileges and benefits be- 
queathed to us by our fathers. In all their 
actions we trace a zealous solicitude to trans- 
mit to posterity a glorious inheritance. Like 
angels of light, they would illuminate the 
minds of their children, with the high impor- 
tance of religious institutions, seminaries, and 
free schools. If, in any form, they would en- 
chain our minds, it would be in the principles 



234 MEDICAL QUACKERY. 

of civil and religious freedom, of patriotism, 
philanthropy, moral rectitude, and public vir- 
tue. But ' our fathers, where are they V Let 
us with laborious fidelity follow them in every 
good word and work, that our children may, in 
the spirit of gratitude and love, reiterate the 
exclamation ' our fathers, where are they V 
It is our glorious privilege to live in an age 
when the elements of our terrestrial abode are 
rendered subservient to the most stupendous 
operations. The works of men's hands appear 
as if endowed with intelligence ; the heated 
steam subverts the power of the fleetest steed, 
and the facilities of traversing the earth and 
seas, are like the airy flights of the feathered 
tribe. But oh ! humbling consideration, death 
triumphs over the frail nature of man ; our 
life is but a continued miracle, capable of being 
sustained only by the hand of that omnipotent 
being whom we adore as the ' former of our 
bodies, and the father of our spirits/ All 
must bow to the awful summons, and quit this 
earthly tabernacle ; the last remains of mortal- 
ity are consigned to the silent tomb to mingle 
with the parent dust. 



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